Another year, another caterpillar
It’s that time of year again, when the geese in formation fly in uneasy short bursts and the last spring’s fawns are nearly as big as their mothers. The Prof and I headed to the local Natural Lands Trust reserve to hunt for the elusive monarch caterpillar under a sky that threatened rain but delivered little more than drizzle. We were two weeks earlier in our hunt than we were last year, and thought it would be a lot easier to locate a caterpillar to nurture to adulthood.
The fall flowers are hitting their stride, and we saw large patches of goldenrod and purple ironweed flowers. The Queen Anne’s Lace was all but gone, but I did find one pint-sized flower the size of a half dollar making a late appearance. A plant I didn’t recognize also caught my eyes; I was able to identify it later as Seicea Lespendeza though I still don’t know what its common name is (if it even has one). While peering under milkweed leaves looking for elusive caterpillars, I noticed a small grouping of late-blooming bread and butter flowers.
The Prof stumbled across a heavily gravid praying mantis in his leaf lifting. I have to believe that she created her egg nest within the hour after we saw her.
While we had luck finding all sorts of flowers and bugs, there was no sign of caterpillars. Finally, we gave up and headed back to the car. The car was parked in an area that had a garden made up of wild flowers found in our area. As a last-ditch effort, we checked the milkweeds in the garden and LO!, we finally found Ziltoid.
Ziltoid was The Prof’s name for this year’s caterpillar, based on an album by one of his favorite musicians, Devin Townsend. Ziltoid is much smaller than Waldoette was when we found her this year, but at the rate she’s going through milkweed leaves she won’t be this small too long. We’ve installed her in a glass bowl with mesh on top, and my plan is to chronicle his progress towards butterflyhood just as I did Waldo’s last year. I really hope I can catch him shedding into a chrysalis and then hatching out into a monarch butterfly this year, since I missed most of that last year, but with my current work schedule I’ll just have to depend on luck and a little cooperation from the Insect Gods.
