Wildly Weird!

  Late this afternoon, I went to review the work Son had done by removing the fence line that once held boysenberries.  For some odd reason, the entire row of vines had shriveled and died leaving quite the unsightly mess this entire summer. I had good intentions of clearing the mess myself but other things managed to get in the way.  He was kind enough to tackle the chore for me.  While out under the grapefruit trees, my pant leg became hopelessly ensnared in a thorny vine.  Even though the boysenberry vines refused to grow, a smilax vine appeared to be quite healthy!  Reaching down to unsnag the fabric, my hand brushed against something that was definitely NOT a vine!  Oops!  That called for closer inspection of the vine.

  At first, I could not find what soft, squirmy thing did not appreciate being smashed.  All I could see was a smilax vine and a dead leaf.  Uh, oh!  That dead leaf wiggled!  Time to put on the eyeglasses.  Oh, my!  I came face to face with the weirdest looking critter that I have ever seen (and I have seen plenty here on the bayou!).  This thing was so ugly it was beautiful...or maybe it was just ugly...in a pretty sort of way.  I had no idea what it was other than a caterpillar of some sort.  Of course, finding an unknown critter meant the camera had to come into play.  After a few photographs to help me identify the critter, I left it to its own resources and headed inside to research my find!

  It did not take long before I found that my critter did, indeed, have a name.  It was the caterpillar of one Curve-lined Owlet Moth.  While the caterpillar looks like some alien from Outer Space, the moth is rather nondescript.  It is brown with a curved line going across the lower part of the wing.  The caterpillar appeared almost evil but not once did it try to bite/sting...it sat acting like a dead leaf.  All of those strange horns and hooks must be for show and not protection.  Perhaps, that is its best defense...be scary looking and be still.  Who knows?  It seemed to work well enough as I let the little guy go on munching the smilax.