Talk about a great conversation-starter for visiting friends and family: The Venus flytrap invites discovery and discussion and adds living intrigue to your home decor. This carnivorous bog dweller makes for a fun, unique, and stimulating plant for plant parents and collectors of all ages. Plenty of curiosity surrounding the Venus flytrap (Dionaea muscipula) involves its diet. To that end, it doesn't just rapidly snap shut its traps (leaf blades) for anything. The plant expends such energy only when potential prey has touched at least two trigger hairs in succession on the inside of a trap within 20 seconds a "feat" accomplished, presumably, by a meaty, worth-the-effort insect. Once captured, the struggling prey touches more hairs, triggering more signals. Enzymatic juices do the rest, over the course of a week or so. Soft-bodied insects represent an important nutritional supplement but not the main course if you will. Our Venus flytraps need prey around four times a year. Other than the bug-eating thing, the Venus flytrap is rather like other plants, depending on light and water to survive. Native to nutrient-poor, wet, acidic soils in the Carolinas, the species gets from its prey minerals it doesn't from the soil. Grows to 5" or more in diameter. Provide full to part sun outside and bright light indoors. Use rain, distilled, or purified water. Place the pot in a bowl and keep ¼" to ½" of water in the bowl. During the winter dormancy period, allow the soil to become barely moist until new growth begins.