Just a couple things from today. First, my hornworm molted and I can now see an eyespot behind the head so I'm pretty sure this is a Tersa Sphinx Moth! I've never gotten one so small before. Good that they have the "horn" on the back or I would have thought they were some generic green caterpillar. I currently have some kind of generic green caterpillar making leaf shelters all over my bougainvillea. I don't know what they are but there are a lot of them!
So here's the Tersa caterpillar. You can see the black spot behind the head. They get even more eyespots as they grow, but like I said, I've never gotten one this small before. Hooray! Also, you can see the discarded head capsule from where it molted. It's on the leaf directly below the eyespot.
I saw a Long-Tailed Skipper the day before yesterday, and then this morning. And I thought, "Too bad I didn't see one when I was gardening yesterday and had my camera out." But I saw one this afternoon and managed to get a few pictures. Not my best, but you can see the thing. It was on the Salvia 'Mystic Spires' and then the porterweed.
In related news, my Long-Tailed Skipper caterpillar made a chrysalis the other day. I should probably move it to the chrysalis container because the one it's in is kind of messy and mold is starting to grow. I hate to tear open the super neat leaf shelter it built, but I've got lots of sticks in the chrysalis container where it can grab on when it emerges. The container it's in now is kind of small and I like to make sure the butterfly has plenty of room to expand its wings.
In sad news, it looks like I'm going to lose the second of my larger, green Spicebush cats. In good news, the brown one I have molted and is growing bigger. He even stinkhorned me so he's a feisty one. A feisty caterpillar is a healthy caterpillar. Also, I found three more Black ST eggs on the rue today. Unfortunately, one fell off when I picked the leaves off the plant. I swear, some of these butterflies need better egg glue.
Speaking of eggs and glue...so I have the eggs in the container with the Black ST cat that hatched already. I was checking them this morning and looking for the three eggs I had. I could only find two, though! I thought, "Oh no! Maybe the caterpillar ate one!" This generally is not a problem so I kept looking. Turns out, the leaf had wilted and folded a little and I just didn't see it. Then, I added the two eggs I found this afternoon in there. I was checking them again, and this time one of the eggs was clearly missing! And the leaf it was on had been really chewed up! I searched all over and there was no egg. I was so bummed. But then I saw something in the corner - a loose egg! Apparently, the caterpillar ate around the egg and must have "unglued" it so now it's just rolling around loose in the container. This won't affect the hatching process, FYI.
