It's a Boy, It's a Girl, it's Mothra

Missed the actual birth I'm sorry to say. (Though I've kept it's "shell casing.") I came out the other morning and there he/she/it was. Looked exactly like a leaf.
Only reason I could identify her/he/him/she/it was that he was clinging to the side of the aquarium/terrarium. Even though I had left up branches for that purpose. How does one crawl and cling to glass? If I had that answer I'd be Spiderman. But if you notice the first picture you'll see one little foot extended to hold itself there.



So I then watched. And waited. And watched. And waited. Just as I have for the past week? Two? Expecting some fabulous other transformation. Nothing seemed to be happening. Except that after hours and hours it might change it's position.

And so it went from clinging to the glass side to "another part of the forest"...the bottom of the terrarium actually. I took a twig and tried to gently open it's wings. And low and behold there were marvelous orange dots present.


If you look at the last photo it looks like there's fur on it's body.


Not the most spectacular colorations - but to go from a green caterpillar to this air born contraption - hey - it was worth the wait.

RIDDLE OF THE SPHINX

So I go out to our vegetable garden the other day and notice, to my horror, two tomato plants are half eaten. By what? I wonder. Upon studying them I discovered these humongous green caterpillars chowing down on the leaves and nibble marks on the fruit. Even though the things are 4" long and about the circumference of a Sharpie permanent marker, they have pretty perfect camouflage. Duplicate color extract as the plant. I plucked five off and threw them way over the fence. Didn't want to kill them. Stupid. Soft hearted.

Then I got on the internet and looked them up. Tobacco Hornworms they are. In the North they're called Tomato Hornworms and have a slightly different coloration. Down South, however, they have the former name. They eat tobacco, and any member of the Nightshade family. Like Irish potatoes, peppers and eggplant. And of course tomatoes. They become Sphinx moths. One of the larger species of flutterers.

Next day went to check again. Five more. I tossed all but one over the fence giving the last two a good talking to. "This is it!" I said. "Last chance. Come back again and I'm cutting you in half. So Beware!" The last one I took and put in my trusty bug jail. I thought it would be fun (well interesting at least) to watch his transformation. Of course then I was FEEDING him my tomato leaves. (I must be nuts. Don't answer that.) And he had an insatiable appetite. But I found him quite enchanting. The most amazing shade of green and with fabulous eye spots all along his sides leading right up to his eyes themselves which were almost indistinguishable from the false ones. And the brownish red horn on his rear end. Really quite fetching.


After a couple of days I realized I couldn't just keep him in a tiny bug jail. So I went down to the root cellar and brought up the aquarium I bought at a tag sale a zillion years ago which I've hauled through every move. The only thing I ever had in it was a bunch of what I thought were frog eggs. Turned out to be salamanders. Half of them cannibalized each other because there were too many in the tank, I guess. Which was rather alarming, to say the least. Once I realized what was happening I put the majority back in the pond from whence they'd come. Only kept a couple. One of which had a leg missing. I figured I owed him. And several weeks later I was surprised to see that the leg had grown back. Pretty neat. Wish we could regenerate body parts like that. I knew spiders could do that in the molting process, but didn't realize efts could too.

Anyway, back to Mr. Hornworm. My research told me that he would go into a "wandering" stage and begin to shrink. (Sort of like where I am at this age - mind wanders and I get closer to the ground every year. Only my next stage isn't as glorious a transformation to a wing-ed thing. Well, who knows - maybe it will be. One can hope, eh?)

Sure enough the other day he stopped his gluttonous consumption and began to crawl aimlessly around the tank like an Alzheimer patient. I then went and got a small bucketful of the forest floor (dried grass and leaves and such), dumped it in and he immediately buried himself under it. And every day after that I uncovered him to see what was what. And indeed he got smaller and small and less bright, duller and duller in color. Until now where he is the color of a dark brown tightly rolled leaf about an inch and a half long. His horn looks longer and is partially curled around his body instead of standing flaglike on the end of his rear. He's extremely active if you disturb him, wiggling like mad. Much more so than is original self which was rather torpid in nature.

I'm assuming they don't need to eat nor drink in this stage. Otherwise I will have nurtured this creature to his slow death.

Birth of a Sphinx Month coming soon to a theatre near you....

Another Visitor

(I wrote this back in Feb. 2010)

We have two cats. One I think is autistic. Well, according to my lights. Or is that lites - these days? Spelling has gone out the window along with everything else. Anyway, the other day I walk into my office and Butternut (so named because he's an orange tabby - NEVER GET AN ORANGE CAT), is in there. He NEVER goes in my office. In the two months we've been here he is either on the couch or under it. Mostly under it. When he does get brave enough to come out and lie on it, should you walk by a little too close, he'll jump off and slink beneath.

Anyway - I see him in my office and find it mighty strange and follow his gaze to the top of the window. And there is a bird. Yes, a BIRD on my curtain rod. A rather terrified Wren I believe it to be. We had the garage door open, and yes, the door to the house too while unloading stuff from the car. Uh huh. I get Butter out of the room simply with a glance in his direction, and then proceed to try to catch the BIRD. HA! The Tommy Dorsey song begins to haunt me: "....The music goes 'round and around, Whoa-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho, And it comes out here." I make a grab here, whoa-ho-ho-ho-ho and the bird goes there. After about five minutes of that nonsense I enlist the aid of my better half. He proceeds to get out a pair of heavy work gloves (well, after all, you never know WHAT diseases these wild creatures may have!)

So together we attempt to corral the creature. "...the music goes round and round, whoa oh oh...." going back and forth to get implementa (like a towel, etc.) from the other room. Mugwump (the other cat) joins in the fray. I take him out of the room. The bird flies round and round and round. And we chase him round and round and round. Poor thing had it's beak open, gasping for breath. I figured, like the bats we've caught, it's just a matter of time until we wear them out.



Eventually he lands yet again on one of the three desks I have in the room, and very slowly I turned, step by step, inch by inch, I move up on him, clicking my tongue in bird speak (this actually works for many different kinds of animals) and slowly raise my hands on either side of him. I've used similar techniques with frogs but that's a one-handed deal in a slow, circular motion. In this case my two open palms gently, slowly close in on him and voila! FINALLY GOT THE BUGGER! And flushed the damn thing down the toilet. Of course not - I let him go.

I recalled after that, the son of the owner of this place saying something about birds coming into the garage and being a pain in the butt. The next morning I went into the garage and there were TWO more Wrens. SO, I guess this is going to be an ongoing THANG.

Winter/Summer

Beautiful at any time of year...