The Urban Pantheist

I like the caterpillars more than the adults - the little osmeterium is so cute!

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osmeterium

A gland bearing strongly smelling substances, usually forked and everted typically from behind the head. plural: osmeteria.

Lepidoptera glossary

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otherwise known as the "horns". They aren't to be confused with the horns on hornworms (that's a whole different family) though - they're shaped differently and on the other end of the body and actually serve a definite purpose.

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hey! one of my lj friends (this is for

urbpan too) found a really weird centipede/millipede? i thought it was a gypsy moth caterpillar! any ideas?

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It's a millipede. I forget what kind.

vyoma identified it for me when I found one. I think he called it a "garden millipede," for what that's worth.

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ummmm, ok. that was (kind of) informative. :)

kudos to you on your early species entry, btw!

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It's nice to not have to worry about doing it in between dinner and walking the dogs and going to bed and such. And it's nice to have a bunch of species to choose from. Another great thing about summer!

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yay!!

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It's a millipede (2 pr legs/segment) but that's about all I can give you.

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jinx!

Oh, hey, thanks for the package!! I got it today. Very exciting! I'm not sure how to best enjoy them yet.

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Well, in the case of the sour cherry spiders, I think they are best enjoyed by not eating them at all.

But the glowing gummis are best eaten in the dark.

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they are better enjoyed WITH ME.

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The giveaway, by the way, is the fact that it has more than 6 legs, and that they are in pairs--two pairs of legs for each body segment.

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do caterpillars only have 6 legs??

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They have six true legs, all on the first three segments behind the head (what will become the adult thorax)

On their abdomen, they may have up to five pairs of prolegs. These aren't really propper legs - just little fleshy protrusions with hooks (called crochets) on the end to help them grip their substrate.

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lol @ your icon!

to us ignorant types, those nubs are leggy enough to be legs.

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well, they don't have any joints. Prolegs are more like...butt cheeks with permanent velcro.

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butt cheeks with permanent velcro

The things I missed not studying entomology in college.

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oh, that's horrible.

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Ah, thank you professor, I was still in the research phase of that answer when you got to it.

But I did just learn that some butterflies lose one pair of true legs when they metamorphose (?!) (scroll to bottom of linked page for illustrated species)

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Yup, there are four families of butterflies that have significantly reduced front legs: Nymphalidae (the brush-footed butterflies), Danaidae (milkweed butterflies), Satyridae (satyrs & wood nymphs) and Libytheidae (snout butterflies). It's unclear what evolutionary advantage this limb reduction serves.

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Well, thanks. I realize I'm the village idiot of this community, but y'all are a pretty high-falutin' village.

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brush-rat.livejournal.com

So much the village idiot, in fact, that I can't even remember to log in before I call myself the village idiot.

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trywhy.livejournal.com

i hate hate hate caterpillars.

When i was seven i planted bell peppers and tended to them by hand as a mother would her children.

i had to go on a week long trip, and left them to my grandmother.

When i got back i found them practically leafless.
At first i didn’t see the daemons, but upon closer inspection i found some green blobs what in retrospect i can say with some degree of certainty was a tomato hornworm.

In my seven year old rage, I carefully wrapped then in tin foil and left them in the sun.

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artemii.livejournal.com

from what i understand, many of the milkweeds up here are less toxic than the ones further south. as a result sometimes birds up here will (successfully) eat a monarch (adult or caterpillar) and thus become convinced that they are all edible.

if viceroys were more common up here, it would be interesting to see whether they mimicked monarchs here, as well. (the black female form of the eastern yellow tiger swallowtail is less common in places that don't have its poisonous relative, the pipevine swallowtail.)

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droserary.livejournal.com

Don't the viceroy's also "mimic" another species of butterfly where the monarch isn't found?

And apparently, my biology textbooks in school simplified things to beyond a level of truth:

New research indicates, however, that the viceroy has successfully deceived scientists, not birds. Entomologists have long labored under the assumption that the viceroy's orange warning colors were just a bluff. Now, two zoologists have demonstrated that to discerning birds, the viceroy can taste just as foul as the noxious monarch.
From this article.

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artemii.livejournal.com

Don't the viceroy's also "mimic" another species of butterfly where the monarch isn't found?

i had thought it did, but i've never lived in an area where it does so i couldn't remember for sure.

cool article - thank you! i wonder if in areas where milkweed tends to be less toxic, and there are both viceroys and monarchs, the viceroy is helping the monarch survive rather than the reverse.

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droserary.livejournal.com

Oh, answered my own question! Apparently, in the south/southwest, the viceroy tends to mimic the Queen butterfly (Danaus gilippus).

i wonder if in areas where milkweed tends to be less toxic, and there are both viceroys and monarchs, the viceroy is helping the monarch survive rather than the reverse.
Sounds like an excellent research thesis!

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perspicuity.livejournal.com

ok, i'm both impressed and relieved/pleased that you found one of these... when i was a kid in this area, monarchs were EVERYWHERE, as were the splendied yellow/white/black young, and ... of course, tons of milkweeds.

these years, and at least the last 10, i've seen plenty of milkweed - in fact, have been "eyeballing" it for harvesting for fiber soon, but not a single caterpillar. anywhere. waaah. they're so cute :)

i used to go out of my way to raise tomato larvae and swallow tail too. so nifty. haven't seen much of those either.

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