Saturday, August 2, 2008

Nuevos Amigos? o Muy Mal

A couple times a day I take the garden tour looking for things to harvest and any other new developments. Looking at my Plumeria I noticed what I thought was new growth, but on closer examination were eating machines!


After hand picking them off I put them on this banana leaf just to see them all together.
They have some little hairs on their rear end that waggle around looking like a fake head. They also have cool little suctioning feet. I really had to pull hard to get them off my plant.
 I put my new little friends in a bucket with leaves so they can cocoon and hatch out into what I hope are mariposas? I'm just curious to see what they become.

Here's my favorite view of one of these guys. I watched them for an hour or more. In the bucket you can actually hear them chewing which is really creepy. We went out for the afternoon and the bucket filled with water and they still lived on. What will they turn into? A giant moth? A butterfly? Maybe they are always worms (but how did they get there). Where did they come from? Another Puerto Rico mystery...

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

These look like mature caterpillars of Pseudosphinx tetrio moths. They love Plumeria. For future reference, a great website for identifying local plants and critters is http://www.kingsnake.com/westindian/

Your new "pets" are listed under "Invertebrates VII: Insects".
Miri

Anonymous said...

I've had them in my backyard (they seemed to like my guava tree) and they turned into butterflies.

I like reading your blog; your photos are great!

Anonymous said...

Thanks Miri - a 6 inch moth...kind of cool!I'm glad I found them before they ate the whole thing. katrina

Anonymous said...

Wow, those are cool looking, not as scary as that crazy looking bug your cats were playing with a while ago. That thing was creepy!!!