Wriggly Critters

This September, out in my tomato patch among several dozen hornworms, I found this BROWN fellow.  I found him fascinating.  He inspired me to do some research on his kind.

I found that he is a true hornworm.  See the light "V" patterns on him?  That indicates he is a hornworm.  If he were missing the bottom slash and had only stripes instead of "v"s he would be a tobacco hornworm; of the which I have found at least one out in my tomato plants.

However, while not terribly rare, he is rather uncommon in that he is brown instead of green.  In my research they said that you can raise them and that they are easy to keep as pets.  

Hmmmmm....

Hmmmmmm...I say.

I dunno about the pet part, but I put him in a glass gallon jar and kept tomato leaves in there to see what he would do.
 

Three days after I put him in the came the day when he went to the bottom of the jar and just crawled around in circles.  I read up a bit more on him and his habits.

Ahhh, yes, he wanted to bury himself and pupate.  So I put a few inches of dirt in the jar and voila; a few hours later he had buried himself. 

The websites all said to wait for 2 weeks to check him, but I couldn't resist.

After 9 days he looked like this:


And, yes.  That little hook thing is part of him.  I thought it was weird that he'd have a hook on him, but well, there it is.

I checked him again just a few days ago and he was still wriggling, with no change.  I have his jar in the coolest place in the house; by the back door.  I wonder when he will finally emerge.  Fascinating science stuff for the kid.  The kid in me, that is, Ellen isn't really interested in him.

Comments

Frau Guten Tag said…
Stuff like this fascinates me tremendously
November 3, 2012 at 10:57 PM
Calfkeeper said…
Yes, Frau, I am glad I'm not the only one. :) And if you are homeschooling it's something to keep in mind for a lesson. Over on the Lumberjack's Wife's blog she was talking about how their homeschooling co-op had the kids dissect owl pellets. Fun stuff.
November 4, 2012 at 8:34 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Oyster

It isn't even halfway through the month yet and I have run out of lists or anything amusing to tell you about the dairy. So here is a poem I picked up on a homesteading forum. It does deal with ag issues, just of a different sort... Enjoy! The Oyster Baxter Black The sign upon the café wall said OYSTERS: fifty cents. "How quaint," the blue-eyed sweetheart said with some bewildermence, "I didn't know they served such fare out here upon the plain." "Oh, sure," her cowboy date replied, "We're really quite urbane." "I would guess they're Chesapeake or Blue Point, don't you think?" "No ma'am, they're mostly Hereford cross . . . and usually they're pink But I've been cold, so cold myself, what you say could be true And if a man looked close enough, their points could sure be blue!" She said, "I gather them myself out on the bay alone. I pluck them from the murky depths and smash them with a...
Read more

Like Cats A'Fightin'

Image
That's a local saying when it's snowing hard. Snowing like cats a'fightin'. You can look out and see the fur flying. Ellen had never been outside while it was actually snowing. She was enchanted. She had to have a bucket of it to carry around. It was in the mid-20s but we took a bit of a walk before coming back in for a nap. The snow is still too dry to be able to make a snowman, it is really powdery. So far we have somewhere between 3 and 4 inches, I would suspect.
Read more

The Blind Calf Story

Image
This happened last month. I thought it was an interesting case. Wed Aug 15th 2007 8:30 AM: Went out and brought new heifer calf and cow in from field. Not too sure how old calf was; umbilical cord sort of dried up, but calf still seemed damp. Left her with cow all morning ‘til maybe early afternoon, then separated them. Beautiful, normal calf. 6 PM Fed calf bottle. She slugged back the whole thing. Thurs Aug 16th5:15 AM (approx) Calf comatose. Or as near as I could tell. She was on her side, non-responsive, drooling, head on ground, eyes closed or just barely opened. I tried to feed her bottle but she only swallowed convulsively once or twice, then milk just drained from her mouth. 5:30 AM. Husband went out and looked at her. Drug her out of pen and out of the way to be taken to boneyard later after chores were all done. She was barely breathing and as I said, totally non-responsive.This was a real grief as the cow she came from is a great milker and to get a heifer from her was a joy....
Read more