It's a trap! Colorado man snaps up record for the largest Venus flytrap for third time

There are occasionally sceptics out there who opine that breaking a record once could be a fluke. However, that charge becomes harder to level at someone who comes back to improve on that same record, not just once but twice.

One such tenacious three-time record breaker is Jeremiah Harris (USA) – who has been fascinated with meat-eating flora since he was a kid. So much so that he is now the president of the Colorado Carnivorous Plant Society (which he founded in 2003).

He has recently scooped the title for the largest trap on a Venus flytrap with a monster spanning 6.6 cm (2.59 in) – akin to one-and-a-half matchsticks – that was confirmed on 9 June. This measurement is based on the mid-rib (i.e., the widest point at the back, or hinged section, of the trap).

For context, most snapping traps you’ll see growing on Venus flytraps typically only reach around 2–3 cm (0.7–1.2 in) wide.

Harris grows all manner of carnivorous plants in a complex of tropical greenhouses that dominate his backyard. In fact, he boasts one of the most extensive living collections of carnivorous plants in the USA.

He previously set the record for most expensive carnivorous plant with a hybrid Nepenthes pitcher plant (N. rajah x N. peltata), named "Leviathan", which sold in July 2019 to an anonymous buyer for $4,500 (£3,540). That record has since been bettered and can be seen in the upcoming Guinness World Records 2027 book, out in September. The plant with which he has had his greatest record success to date, though, is the Venus flytrap (Dionaea muscipula).

With their distinctive toothed traps and sensory hairs that enable them to rapidly shut in milliseconds, ensnaring unwitting bugs within to be slowly digested, Venus flytraps are one of the plant world’s biggest rockstars. They’re instantly recognizable even to those with little knowledge or interest in horticulture.

Harris himself has been enamoured with these predatory plants most of his life: “I’ve been fascinated with Venus flytraps since my parents got me one when I was five years old in 1992.”

Although there is taxonomically only one species of Venus flytrap (making it what is known as a “monotypic genus”), the plant comes in many different shapes, sizes and colours owing to extensive cross-cultivation by both amateur and professional breeders over many decades. One such variation is that some examples have much larger trapping leaves than others.

This huge variety is one of the aspects that has made Harris such an ardent megafan of Venus flytraps for so long: “Since there’s only one species of Dionaea, I love how growers and breeders have pulled out all the anomalies over the years. Even though I now have almost 500 different varieties, there’s still something new each year.”

Harris first claimed the title for largest trap on a Venus flytrap in 2020, with a 5-cm (1.96-in) leaf on a cultivar known as “Alien”.

He followed this up a year later with a trap from another “Alien” plant, upping the ante to 6.1 cm (2.4 in).

His latest record was produced by a different cultivar: “GJ Montecore” – originally bred by Mathias Maier of Green Jaws Nursery in Germany in 2014. Harris has also been growing this variety since 2020, though this is the first time he’s been able to nurture traps as giant as this from it.

Harris may now have claimed the record for the third time, but he admits that – as with any horticultural challenge – the results don’t always go his way. It’s often a case of things not working and then taking a different approach the next time until it works.

“Every year I had been trying to break this record,” he told GWR. “I had managed to get 6 cm but not bigger. As this one was growing. I could see it would be a massive trap and it kept getting bigger…

“I was so excited because I’d just given a talk about how to grow world-record Venus flytraps in North Carolina. I got back home and saw this!

“This one is very difficult to keep happy because it can’t eat insects on its own. I have to fertilize it – but very carefully! Too much fertilizer could hurt more than help.”

As now a triple-time holder of this title, does Harris have any words of wisdom he can share with anyone who might be looking to supersize their own flytraps?

His tips are appropriately snappy: “Repot every year. Give it very bright light. Get the fertilizer exactly right. Start with a clone that already has proven exceptionally large traps.”

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