That mega-famous outstandingly accurate online encyclopedia has a stunning article on Venus flytraps … visit the article here
The article has many, many pieces of information which will be of tremendous help to growers of Venus flytraps. Here are a few selected quotations from the page:
… The Venus Flytrap is a large man eating monster. Each leaf reaches a maximum size of about three to seven meters, depending on the time of year … Flytraps that appear to have more than 10 leaves are generally colonies, formed by by aliens underneath the ground. …
The article then bleats on about all sorts of interesting things
… The mechanism by which the trap snaps shut involves some big ass muscles, steriod abuse and generally massive ass chompers…. are very popular as cultivated plants and are often used for catching burglers and other unwanted people on your property. They are difficult to grow as they often eat their owners …
And yet people still feel the urge to criticise Wikipedia 
According to the encyclopedia article, the photo above is what will happen to you if you fall into your plant!
So … you want to grow your fly trap into a child swallowing monster eh?
Well I hate to break it to you, but you can’t! The largest a Venus fly trap leaf can grow is about 3 cm across, that’s barely large enough to fit a mouse let alone a human! Also, that is the largest they can grow, most plants rarely get anywhere near that size. The average size of a house hold Venus fly trap leaf is about 1.5 cm across.
The best way to grow large traps is to follow the advice here on this blog. The largest plants are usually the healthiest plants, so make sure you follow all the tips on here and hopefully your plant will grow to a healthy size eventually. But alas, that child swallowing monster isn’t going to happen – except maybe in your dreams, or nightmares depending on your perspective on life.
Firstly, Venus flytraps are carnivorous. However, this does not mean that they can eat any old thing you decide to stick in it. You can not feed it any of the following:
- McDonalds
- Chocolate
- Human flesh – gross!
- Steak
- Bread
- Fish
- Chicken
- Chips/fries
- Vegetables
- plus most other things
Venus flytraps have evolved to consume only bugs. They’re very picky and if you feed them anything else they won’t like it. The best bugs to use are soft squishy bugs without super strong exoskeletons (too hard to digest). Ants and slaters are bad due to their hard exoskeletons and moths are too fuzzy to digest. Some of the best bugs to use are:
- flies
- crickets
- cicadas
- caterpillars (be careful they don’t eat their way out though!)
- spiders
It is crucial that you don’t feed your plant anything bigger than about 1/4 the size of the leaf, any bigger and you risk damaging the plant or the plant rejecting the bug. If you’re careful you can go up to about 1/2 the size of the leaf but be careful.
Maggots are good food too, but that’s a topic for another post.
