These brief descriptions and pictures will hopefully help for identification of some of the common insects you might and probably will encounter growing carnivorous plants.
Aphids common on outdoor or greenhouse grown plants but can become a problem for indoor plants as well. Aphids come in either green or brown, mostly I have only seen the green aphids indoors. Adult aphids are winged and fly around late spring and summer looking for a suitable tender juicy plant to deposit up to ten young offspring on in one go.
Adult with young aphids
Fungus gnats haven’t been a problem for my plants. I do get them occasionally mostly from recently potted soil that’s still finding its microbial balance and whatever dormant eggs were in there hatch. They live in soil as a little translucent worm chewing on organic material until they are ready to pupate into a winged thin black flying adult.
Adult Fungus gnat
Mealy bugs are the most dangerous adversary the plants ever faced. They are brilliant, ruthless, and will not hesitate to kill every single one of your plants. They are resistant to poisons and will live on all parts of a plant including below the soil surface amongst the roots.
Soil mites are not directly harmful to humans or plants. They crawl around and mainly eat decomposing materials.
They can vary in size, usually measuring between 0.2 and 1.5mm, and they have different colors.
However, they also catch & eat other small creatures like springtails.
Scale is light brown to dark brown and resembles a bump or if you live on the coast a limpet, usually found on the underside of leaves along the midrib or vein. Doesn’t seem picky about what plants it likes to feed on. Juvenile scale will crawl around till they find a suitable spot they like then attach themselves permanently to the leaf with a waxy protective shell covering their sensitive parts while they feed on plant juices. Here in costal BC scale can survive the winter outdoors
Springtails, not a pest and beneficial, they eat bacteria, mold and break down decaying material helping to keep things in balance and issues like mold from becoming a problem. They also probably become victims to the carnivorous plants as another benefit. Springtails are under 2mm and come in manny different colours and are most easily identified by their signature springing action when disturbed.
Thrips also not picky about which plant to attack and although very small, under 2mm they can cause a lot of damage. In fact you might notice the damage before finding the Thrip infestation as they spread plant viruses that cause leaf damage. They come in a variety of colours greenish, yellow, brown and black.
For treatments you can post questions in this thread or refer to this Neem oil recipe thread which works well for most pests except Mealy bugs.
Aphids common on outdoor or greenhouse grown plants but can become a problem for indoor plants as well. Aphids come in either green or brown, mostly I have only seen the green aphids indoors. Adult aphids are winged and fly around late spring and summer looking for a suitable tender juicy plant to deposit up to ten young offspring on in one go.
Adult with young aphids
Fungus gnats haven’t been a problem for my plants. I do get them occasionally mostly from recently potted soil that’s still finding its microbial balance and whatever dormant eggs were in there hatch. They live in soil as a little translucent worm chewing on organic material until they are ready to pupate into a winged thin black flying adult.
Adult Fungus gnat
Mealy bugs are the most dangerous adversary the plants ever faced. They are brilliant, ruthless, and will not hesitate to kill every single one of your plants. They are resistant to poisons and will live on all parts of a plant including below the soil surface amongst the roots.
Soil mites are not directly harmful to humans or plants. They crawl around and mainly eat decomposing materials.
They can vary in size, usually measuring between 0.2 and 1.5mm, and they have different colors.
However, they also catch & eat other small creatures like springtails.
Scale is light brown to dark brown and resembles a bump or if you live on the coast a limpet, usually found on the underside of leaves along the midrib or vein. Doesn’t seem picky about what plants it likes to feed on. Juvenile scale will crawl around till they find a suitable spot they like then attach themselves permanently to the leaf with a waxy protective shell covering their sensitive parts while they feed on plant juices. Here in costal BC scale can survive the winter outdoors

Springtails, not a pest and beneficial, they eat bacteria, mold and break down decaying material helping to keep things in balance and issues like mold from becoming a problem. They also probably become victims to the carnivorous plants as another benefit. Springtails are under 2mm and come in manny different colours and are most easily identified by their signature springing action when disturbed.
Thrips also not picky about which plant to attack and although very small, under 2mm they can cause a lot of damage. In fact you might notice the damage before finding the Thrip infestation as they spread plant viruses that cause leaf damage. They come in a variety of colours greenish, yellow, brown and black.
For treatments you can post questions in this thread or refer to this Neem oil recipe thread which works well for most pests except Mealy bugs.
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