Tag: caterpillar

Uresiphita reversalis

Published on by HashiLeave a comment
Uresiphita reversalis

A and I explored Santa Ynez Canyon for the first time since the Palisades Fire burned through a year ago. There’s a lot of regrowth and things are looking pretty good. We were excited to see a lot of young Humboldt lily plants; we’ll for sure return in late spring to see the flowers.

I spotted some caterpillars of the Genista Broom Moth munching on lupins. Genista caterpillars feed primarily on acacias and members of the pea family, including brooms (Genista spp.), Scotch broom, Texas mountain laurel (Sophora secundiflora), blue wild indigo or false indigo (Baptisia australis), and lupines. These caterpillars ingest and store alkaloids from their host plants, making them bitter—and sometimes toxic—to mammals, birds, and some insect predators (so definitely don’t eat them!).

hidden

Published on by HashiLeave a comment
hidden

Whenever I see a curled leaf—especially in my garden—I get curious about what’s inside the burrito. In this case, I’m pretty sure it’s a tobacco budworm or fruitworm, neither of which I want in my veggie garden. Sorry little wormie!

Manduca sexta

Published on by HashiLeave a comment

Here’s something interesting: hornworms’ hemolymph (blood) is blue, coloured by a protein called insecticyanin. The foliage they eat contains carotenoids, which are primarily yellow in hue. The resulting combination (blue + yellow) gives them their green colouring. If fed a wheatgerm-based diet in a lab, these caterpillars are turquoise due to the lack of carotenoids in their diet.

Both tobacco hornworms and the very similar tomato hornworms are big fans of Solanaceae (nightshades like tomatoes, potatoes, peppers, tobacco), but they also eat crucifers, legumes, eucalyptus, ficus, and other plants.