April 27 2010
Caterpillar story to the TX-BUTTERFLY list serve:
Regarding Mike Quinn's advice to raise some of the caterpillars found on Mexican Buckeye plants in Travis and Hays County. My plan was to transfer a few of the caterpillars depicted below to another Mexican Buckeye in town and enclose them in some mosquito netting around a large branch until they pupated.
But it's all happening too fast.
Yesterday I taped a piece of rope to a large metal coffee can with a lid and we went down to the Mexican Buckeye growing over the steps to the river. I picked off four of them and a sprig of the buckeye, thinking that would be enough until I could transfer the caterpillars to the Mexican Buckeye in our backyard.
Back to the rural house I wrapped the base of the sprig in a wet paper towel and transferred cats and sprig back to the can.
The first hitch was that it was impossible to acquire the mosquito netting in a timely way. Three hours later I picked a larger sprig off the buckeye in the backyard of our Austin house and arranged the two sprigs in a small jelly jar vase of water. All four cats proceeded to munch happily away on the original sprig and I figured I had time to get the mosquito net as per my plan.
I figured all was going to stay the same for a while so I put the little vase on my desk to watch what they did. But I was very tired from the previous days' activity on the land and just had to have a nap. When I awoke three cats were munching and the third was GONE!
I looked around and there it was, clinging to the wire to my cell phone on the desk. It was way after dark.
The upshot was, not knowing what to do I went out and got ahold of some oak sticks and put them in a clear bowl with the vase of Mexican Buckeye and the torpid caterpillar. I put it all in a cheap styofoam beverage cooler. I looked in a couple of hours later and three cats were on the bottom of the clear bowl and one was on the bottom of the cooler. I put the one back with the rest, took the sprigs out of the vase and removed it. I put the sprigs back into the bowl over the cats and went to bed.
When I arrived back in my office this morning I looked in and could see one cat in the bowl. I poked around and found two had folded leaves of the backyard Mexican Buckeye around themselves, gluing their little nests together with strands of silk. I didn't see the other. I was concerned all the poking around wasn't a good idea.
I put the the forth cat in the leaves hoping it could do the same as the others and here we are.
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Here is the folded leaf with the caterpillar inside.
I guess now we're in for the long wait as the caterpillars pupate and emerge as whatever they will. I'll build a cage with a potted plant I'll have to water to keep alive and watch for what emerges.
It would be helpful if I had some idea about how long it will be before they emerge from their little cocoons.
So far we know the caterpillars wrap themselves in leaves of the host plants and lace itself in with silk when they have eaten enough. ...or they're afraid.
Posted in 2010 Journal, Census, Habitat
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