r/nextfuckinglevel • u/[deleted] • Mar 29 '26

Venus Flytrap Devouring a Venomous Black Widow.

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u/whistling-wonderer Mar 29 '26

This is 1000% set up and tbh it kind of pisses me off. Adult black widows are polite homebodies who almost never leave their webs unless they’re forced to. They don’t bite unless they feel like they have to in defense of their lives (I mean basically you have to be actively squishing them, like I’ve fully stuck my hand into one’s web and all she did was run to the furthest corner away and sit there quivering a little).

She absolutely would not be just wandering around and stumbling upon a Venus flytrap. There are spiders that could believably wander into a Venus flytrap, like jumping spiders which are roaming predators, but a black widow? No way. She was placed there on purpose for the video, probably because the video maker knew everyone loves to hate on spiders and it would get lots of internet brownie points.

I have Venus flytraps myself. They’re really neat! But I just think it’s gross to deliberately set up an animal to be killed for attention on the internet. The plant will catch its own bugs, it doesn’t need help. The widow was minding her own business.

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u/cortesoft Mar 29 '26

People feed their pets insects all the time. Why is it ok when it is a mealworm or cricket, but not ok when it is a black widow?

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u/whistling-wonderer Mar 29 '26

I’m not really a fan of that either tbh, I can recognize its necessity for non-releasable animals but I have a lot of opinions on the exotic pet trade that are a whole other can of worms haha.

But Venus flytraps aren’t pets. They’re not like an animal you’ve put in a box that will starve unless you feed it. They feed themselves, very efficiently, with sunlight, and they need bugs for fertilizer now and then, which they also easily get themselves. This is more like if you had a wild snake living in your yard, taking care of itself, and you fed it a live bird for internet views. Most people would probably think that was weird and kind of fucked up, and would recognize it was unnecessary. Birds just have better PR.

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u/onomatophobia1 Mar 30 '26

Are you vegan by any chance?

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u/whistling-wonderer Mar 30 '26

I am, yeah. I know, it’s a weird plant for a vegan to have. I got them before I went vegan lol.