Monday, August 07, 2006

EEEEWWWW GROSS!!!!!

Okay...so Jacob comes in all freaked out yesterday saying that something was happening to his caterpillars. Mike told him they were maggots. I told him that it just looked like they were having babies. Two of the three caterpillars had eggs attached...one did not. The third had eggs hatch today. Out of curiosity, I decided to look it up on the internet. Thank God I did. Apparently, the caterpillar's biggest enemy, a small parasitic type of wasp likes to lay it's eggs on these caterpillars and they feed off of them until they hatch and then sting the caterpillars to death. I can't sit and watch that happen. Jacob would be crushed. We took them outside and scraped all of the eggs off of them and they immediately perked up. I'm hoping they recover. So, for the record, I was wrong and I admit it!

Oh, by the way, Tomato hornworms turn into Hummingbird Moths.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

What were you wrong about? I think it's fascinating but I'm glad it's you and not me.

Barbara said...

I was wrong about calling them baby caterpillars. They are so not baby caterpillars. They are much happier this evening!