This work focuses on food preferences of freshwater triclad Crenobia alpina and its position in spring food web. It explores the ability of C. alpina to capture living prey, considers ability of C. alpina and to survive feeding on several types of food. Furthermore it gives view on its occurence and ecological preferences in context of other spring species. One chapter is concerned with taxonomy, anatomy and ecology of Tricladida and C. alpina itself. Short term food-preference experiments show the ability of C. alpina to capture living Lumriculidae and larvae of Ephemeroptera. We don't confirm feeding of C. alpina on living Gammarus, although their occurence in our springs and ecological preferences are similar. C. alpina feeds significantly more on damaged prey without substantial afinity to any species. A year-long experiment on C. alpina in lab conditions finds that this flatworm is able to survive and even breed with nothing but filtred water. This fact connected with the observation of huge densities of flatworms in spring source, opens up a question whether C. alpina can be considered a real predator. Key words: Crenobia alpina, triclad flatworms, food preferences, spring