I know, it's kind of silly that these guys were destroying my plant, but now I'm clipping off leaves to feed to them. I can't help myself. They're just so fascinating!
Well, I told my Mom about the caterpillars last week and she contacted a friend at the County Extensions office. Molly said she'd take them to use for educating on the life cycle of caterpillars. I stopped by her office Friday to drop them off, but she wasn't there. Since she wouldn't be returning and these guys have such a huge appetite (they ate everything the night before!), I decided they probably wouldn't make it through the weekend sitting on a desk. So, I took them home.
I've been stuffing the jar with leaves every night and they've been eating every last scrap. Tonight before I left to meet up with Timo and Geoff, I checked on my new friends. They're a different color! They're lighter brown with a slight redish tint now. They looked moist and the leaves touching the bottom of the jar looked damp. My first reaction was, "Oh no!" I started to panic thinking the leaves I had fed them from my Mom's Penta had been treated with pesticides, making the caterpillars sick. I reached into the jar to pull the leaves out and to "clean" the habitat of whatever was causing a problem. The leaves were sticky and it felt like some sort of webbing was holding everything firming to the sides of the jar. I panicked again when I remembered removing a very small unknown worm from one of the leaves in the jar the night before. "But maybe there were more worms and maybe they aren't friends......OOOOOOH! Maybe they're transforming?!"
See for yourself...
Notice the horn sort of "folding" toward the head...
Notice the "webbing"...
