Those Helpful Caterpillars

My boys came running in the house the other day to inspect under the microscope a caterpillar that was found on Wesley and had been biting him.  They were wanting to know what kind it was.  I started looking up on the Internet about a black and white caterpillar but Zachary had his own ideas. 

He thought from previous readings that the white on the caterpillar was eggs.  I scoffed at the idea (Would I do something like that?) took him lightly and kept to my own research.

Well he pulled out his books, started going through them and found what he was looking for.  Guess what he found?  The white on the caterpillar was cocoons!  To be exact it is the cocoon from a braconids wasp. 

Some interesting (and somewhat nasty) info they learned about these insects were:

1. The adult wasp lays eggs inside of the host.  The larvae feeds on the host until it is time to pupate (that is the stage between larvae and adult). 
2. It will either pupate inside the host or outside – which is what the larvae did in this case.  The white cocoons on the caterpillar we caught is the pupa.

Wow!  I’ve never heard of such things.  There is so much about the natural world that I know nothing about.  Lots to learn.

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I wanted to get some pictures of Zach to send to a friend who is a nature enthusiast.  I wanted Zachary to be in the picture but I also had to be sure to zoom in enough to actually see the caterpillar.

Attempt #1 – "This won’t work.  I don’t want it to look like you’re about to eat it – with such relish too!"

Attempt #2:  "This is Zachary reporting for the ENN Network.  There’s been a serious outbreak of hairy, black caterpillars carrying braconids wasp larvae…" 

Nah, this picture’s not going to work either.

Attempt #3 A smile that looks painfully forced. 

Hey, Zachary.  What do you say we just take a picture of the caterpillar? 

Copyright 2008 Treasuring the Moments