hot damn i’ve witnessed almost a complete life cycle of a hornworm creature-beast.
and quite frankly, that excites me.
on saturday, i posted these hornworm pics. my niece led me to the fact that it was a moth worm.
yesterday, i noticed this crazy thing on the netting on the front of the garage. it is really, really very hairy. it’s FUR-LIKE. i wonder how many of those it would take to make a coat?
i kept an eye on it all day and all day it remained in one spot.
until darkness arrived…
at darkfall, i noticed the big scary hairy beast was flying around in the garage. i was careful not to get in it’s path in the chance it might try and strangle me. (i hear your smirks, it could totally happen!)
one of the cats was trying to play with it. i wondered to myself if by a snowball’s chance in hell could i capture the cat and the beast on film. nope.
this morning, i noticed evidence of a creature’s presence.
what you see here are EGGS on the front of a magazine rack that i’ve had for ages. in fact, the date on the front page is the date i was given this magazine rack.
what you are seeing here today is an almost FULL life cycle of a HORNWORM. the only piece not shown here is the hornworm pupa. i have however seen many of these pupa’s while getting the garden beds ready for plants.
this pupa photo is courtesy of cahri’s bugs online. which, is a really neat site with lots of great photos.
as far as i can tell they are only working on my moonflowers instead of my tomatoes. if you happen to spot these on your maters, you best go ahead and get rid of them or you’ll lose your mater crop.
a final thought about this interest i have in such seemingly simple things. i often wonder why is it that i never did well in biology or science or zoology? i absolutely love discovering these things. perhaps getting high was too important at the time. i have a LOT of catching up to do.
as my dad would say (mimicking the cajun cook, justin wilson), “don’t that fine”.
Posted by leah 
