Shop Products
Houzz Logo Print
virraszto

How long does it take for the spider to die?

virraszto
14 years ago

I bought a VFT the other day at Lowes. I had it outside with the top off and checked it periodically. At 9 am, a Daddy Long Legs got trapped. At around 5 pm, the poor thing was still trapped, but still alive. I figure this spider had endured enough torture, so I chopped off the trap, split it open, and freed the spider. Does it take hours upon hours to kill insects usually? I actually video tapped the procedure. ;) I'm not a freak...I just think the spider should have died within a reasonable amount of time and it had paid it's dues.

Comments (5)

  • tommyr_gw Zone 6
    14 years ago

    Let nature take it's coarse. You are not nature. LEAVE IT ALONE. People mess with these WAY too much.....

  • mcantrell
    14 years ago

    It can take them days upon days to finally die, depending. It's rather horrific if you think about it.

    I wouldn't worry too much, there's always a few hundred more.

  • hunterkiller03
    14 years ago

    It usually takes about 30 minutes for the trap to enter the Ânarrowing phase after capturing its prey. ThatÂs when the margins of the lobes become tightly shut and the interlocking spines splay apart and straight. While the inside of the trap is inundated with digestive fluids to the digestive process. If the prey isnÂt squashed to death, then itÂs done in by the fluids. So it should be dead about half an hour.

    The Ânarrowing phase does take considerable energy from the plant to reach this phase to digest its prey. So that means that if your VFT hasnÂt reached this phase after hours of stimuli from the spider, then it doesnÂt have enough energy to digest prey. Typical case from a plant recently bought from a store. They are bumped around during travel to the store, sometime all the traps are sprung, not to mention that they have the plants placed in a low-lit area of the store. The reason why the plants are weak and in shock after you purchase them and the reason your VFt didn't kill the spider to digest it.

    Try not to tease the traps to close. All youÂre going to do is make your plant expand its energies needlessly to close its traps and making them waste that energy will kill your plant. So let it be

    It will take a few months for your plant to recover and you will notice your plant will sprout smaller leaves then the ones it has now as it recovers. But once it does, it will slowly start developing bigger and bigger traps. And when they capture their prey, they will kill it quickly.

  • virraszto
    Original Author
    14 years ago

    Thanks for you informative reply hunterkiller. I bought the plant about a week or so ago. I took the plastic top off and left it outside on my patio table.

    We didn't mess with it at all. It did, on it's own trap some small bugs. When I came out in the morning, I noticed it had a daddy long leg trapped in it, but all it's legs were dangling outside, moving. I left it alone, figuring when I came back in a few hours, the spider would be dead.

    After checking on it several times, the spider was still moving it's legs, trying to escape. My kids were grossed out, and honestly, I was a bit, too. It's not the killing that bothers me, it was the slow, torturing that got to me. I just snipped the trap off the plant, took a toothpick and freed the spider.

    I brought the plant in and set it in my window sill. It is starting to grow more small traps. It looks healthy enough.

    We haven't teased the traps at all. It is possible that it wasn't hungy because it had been outside a few days and had eaten on it's own.

    To anyone else:
    No need to get angry because I saved one spider from a torturous death. I kill enough bugs each night when I feed my toads. At my house, I *am* mother nature.;)

  • taz6122
    14 years ago

    It has nothing to do with hunger and you should have cut the legs off the spider instead of injuring the plant if it (bugged) you that much.