Giving Up Is Not An Option

   Early this morning, I headed to the little Frog Pond to see if our resident watersnake had returned.  Since I could not find her, my thoughts turned to other things...frogs!  The green treefrogs and American toads were singing their beautiful songs last night so the pond was full!  One, in particular, caught my eye as it was far up on one of the grasses.  That was big for a green treefrog!  I admired it for a bit before ambling back to the porch.  As I went passed the storeroom, another critter caught my eye.  A cicada was struggling to keep ahold of the siding as it morphed from its underground phase to its full adult stage.  The poor thing had half pushed its way out of its shed and was dangling precariously backwards!  Its grip on the siding had failed.  The poor thing was not able to right itself from this awkward angle causing it to not be able to finish its job of pulling from the old exoskeleton.  It was stuck.  While this situation was bad enough for the critter, I knew if it fell, things would be drastically worse.  A cicada has to hang vertically for its wings to form and dry. 

  Just as I was pondering whether I should go against Son's advice of never interfering with nature, the poor cicada dropped to the ground.  Oh, geez!  It had fallen right near an ant nest!  Poor little fellow!  Without thinking about that sage advice, I put my hand down next to the critter and allowed it to cling to me.  Now what??  It was time to find a safe place for our friendly critter.  Ahh, yes!  The small, potted quince tree would have to suffice as a temporary "hospital" for the bug.

  The little guy seemed well pleased with its new location and clung to the bark like a boss!  I kept watch on the progress and offered the occasional "moral support" that was needed to finish the process of molting.  It was an amazing experience to watch as the wings unfurled and then were inflated (yes, they inflate) then harden.  This took about an hour. During the hardening, I was a tad worried about its right wing but, in the end, the wing was normal. The adult cicada was gorgeous! Soon, it was able to take flight!  I look forward to hearing its call (or rather the calls of hundreds in the treetops).  I guess I will just have to take it that one of those calls is from the rescued critter.

Molting Assassin Bug

   It seems that I post a good bit about the insects around here.  We have plenty.  Some wreak havoc.  Termites and eastern lubber grasshoppers are both on my "bad" list.  I am not a fan of either.  Also on that list are yellow jackets but I have not come in contact with any of those yet this year...yet.  I hope I do not.  They have nasty tempers!   We do, however, have some "good" insects and I have found myself fully appreciating those.  Just a couple of days ago, I found that assassin bug creepy-crawling on the turmeric leaves.  I was elated to see more of them today.  A lot of folks think I am nuts loving these bugs since they can give a painful bite.  The assassin bug has one large fang that it is not afraid to use when it feels it is in danger.  That piercing fang hurts!  Still, I am always excited to find the critters and never dream of killing them.

  Today, one assassin nymph was in the process of molting.  I found it on the fox grape vines.  Later, I found one living up to its name.  Back in the herb garden, one had caught a fly and was sucking the life from it.  Let's return to that one molting, though.  I always find it fascinating to watch how insects can actually climb out of their exoskeleton and become a larger critter.  I suppose not many folks take the time to view this but it is quite the undertaking for the critter and puts it in danger.  While molting, an insect is rather soft and vulnerable to any larger predators.  It has absolutely no defense at this stage and cannot even make a run for it.  The critter is literally "stuck" there until it manages to wiggle free and then "harden".  

  Most likely, others would purely see the critters as "just another pest" and try to eradicate them.  Not me!  I figure to let these predators live and flourish in the gardens.  They are free pest control and eat a lot of insects that would love to dine upon my cabbages!

She Is A Fighter!

   Early this afternoon, I pulled back the curtain in the dining room only to see a nice orb weaver spider.  I knew she had a web in the corner and wanted to check on her well-being.  To my surprise, I found her in the process of molting!  Excitedly, I grabbed the camera and headed outside to witness the event.  Things of this sort interest me so I was making sure to photograph my sweet friend as she "grew".

  The molting of spiders is the way they grow.  Once the critter eats enough to be too tight in their exoskeleton, they need to shed.  The process is called ecdysis. The spider actually grows a new exoskeleton inside the old.  It remains soft until the time comes for the process to begin.  Then, the two "skeletons" separate so it can slide out of the old "casing".  The cephalothorax (the leggy part) splits and the body of the spider slips out.  Then comes the hard part.  Getting those long legs out is not an easy task.  If the spider does not keep flexing the legs, they will start to harden before they are clear of the old exoskeleton.  If the hardening is rapid, the spider can die a slow death as it is fused with the old exterior.  It cannot move.  It cannot eat.  It dies.

  Our heroine managed to pull all of her legs free except one.  No matter how hard she tried, one leg stayed firmly in place.  I so wanted to help but that was impossible. Trying to save the spider would have only made matters worse.  The spider knew she was held fast so she did the only thing she could to survive.  She literally pulled off her leg.  My sweet friend sacrificed her leg so she could carry on with life.  

  This spider is not fully grown yet and will shed again...maybe twice.  During those molts, she may grow a new leg to replace the one lost.  Hopefully, her molting will be easier next time.  I will keep a watchful eye and try to capture the event again.  She is the sweetest spider and will, hopefully, live to mate and produce her egg sac full of tiny (future) spiderlings!

One Less Garden Pest

  It is that time of year when the critters that were born (hatched) earlier in the spring have to get accustomed to their new size.  Critters grow fast.  They mature at a greater rate than humans merely because of hardships faced.  There is no mollycoddling of the young.  It is more of a "grow up and move on" type situation.  Even critters that do care for their babies only provide that care for a very short time.  It is also that time where critters of the insect world start molting.  The babies are no longer tiny and they have to shed that exoskeleton so they can grow.  This is much like our changing our clothes as we grow.  The outer part separates from their bodies and then splits.  The critters sort of slither out.  At this point, they are usually soft and have limited movement.  They are also highly vulnerable.  Predators can make an easy meal of them as the insects cannot escape.

  This morning, I headed to the garden.  We had a particularly nice rain last night and I knew the yellow squash should be the perfect size for picking.  Lunch was going to be a delight.  After getting my bowl full of the beauties, I turned to check how the blueberries were doing.  It was there that I found my molting critter.  A eastern lubber grasshopper was in the process of shedding that outer layer.  The grasshopper was almost all the way out of the old outer shell when I happened upon it.  Things like this never cease to interest me so I watched the critter for a while.  This one was well on its way to attaining its adult size of about 3 inches in length. 

  Now, had this been most any other insect, I probably would have left it be but because of the damage these critters do, I did get rid of it.  The process was easy and swift.  There is now one less pair of gnawing jaws to tear down my plants.  Sorry, grasshopper.  You just had to go.  One down....a million to go.

The "Dressing Room"

  It is that time of summer when I have to meander out to pick figs at dawn and then again at dusk.  There is a reason behind this madness and that reason is birds.  While I love my songbirds, they need to stop eating my fruit!  The two large fig trees stand between the garden fence and the greenhouse but even in those close quarters, dozens of assorted birds gather to munch on the ripe figs.  So, if I wish to make any jam for this winter, I have to "be up before the birds" and then do a second picking in the late afternoon. 

  It was during that late afternoon picking that Mark reached up to bend a tall limb down so I could reach the uppermost figs.  As soon as he took hold of the branch, he called my attention to a visitor...or maybe we were the intruders in this case.  An Obscure Bird Grasshopper was perched up among the leaves.  We had interrupted a very important time for this critter.  The grasshopper was still a bit sluggish from shedding its outer layer much like a crab sheds its shell during growth.  The grasshopper had outgrown its outer layer and need to shed into its adult size.  The process is called molting and is the way insects grow.  

  Just yesterday, I had remarked to Son that something was munching the upper leaves of the fig trees.  I now realize that the Bird Grasshopper was trying to "fill up" so it would survive the molt.  Most critters that go through such a molting stage as this, do not eat during the entire process.  Their bodies are too soft to seek out food and because of this softness, they try to stay hidden.  During their soft stage, they are easy targets for any predators even those smaller than themselves.  

  Even though these grasshoppers can do much damage to plants, I decided to let it go on its merry way.  We let the frightened critter ease its way under a thick batch of leaves as we continued picking figs around it.  It was a rather nifty find, though, as seeing both the freshly molted grasshopper and the old shed is a bit unusual.  You just never know what might be lurking in the fig trees!

A New Wardrobe!

  Today, Mark saw that a crab in one of the traps was "busting".  This is the term most folks around here use to describe a crab that is on the verge of molting.  This molting involves a good deal of work for the crab but does indeed make for a delicious meal for anyone lucky enough to find one immediately after the deed is done.  This stage of a crab's life is called "soft-shell" stage and it is during this time that the crab can be grilled or fried and eaten whole. (Whole being a relative term since the crab is "cleaned".  The innards and the "face" are usually removed.)   Since Mark was not going to be home for a few hours, it was to be up to me to be on "crab watch".  I would have to be there at the precise moment the crab exited his old shell so I could retrieve him and clean him.  Otherwise, the crab's shell would soon start to harden and become a "paper-shell".  While paper-shells are still edible, they are not as desirable as the soft-shells.

  Since I had to be on the pier watching that crab anyway, I decided to make a record of the process.  I figured that it could be a learning situation for anyone who has never seen this before. This took a lot of patience since crabs are not the fastest critters in the world at doing anything and this molting is sort of in slow motion even for them.  It took nigh on an hour for the crab to break free from his old shell.  

  Needless to say, Mark was extremely happy to come home to a nice, cleaned soft-shell crab in the refrigerator.  It did not take long before that crab became lunch for a hungry man!

The New Clothes!

Two things prompted me to start that pondering again..a grasshopper and a crab!  Sometimes, I feel like all I do is try to figure out just how things operate in nature.  Today's conundrum?  How in the world do critters change their clothes?  Now before you get the wrong idea, I am referring to the molting process of a lot of animals and insects.  Take, for instance, the grasshopper.  Now you know that with their exoskeletons it would to be a pain to grow if they had no way of expanding their body.  You can only cram so much body inside that crate-like body.  So what do they do when they gain a bit too much weight and their clothes fit too tight?  The grasshopper merely trades it in for a new look!  It casts off the old exoskeleton like last season's outfit!  The grasshopper's body gets all soft and squishy, the old "clothes" split at the seams and out emerges a larger bug in a beautiful new outfit!  The process takes quite a while but is oh, so worth it when it is finished!  The grasshopper can "breathe" again much like us when we finally admit we need a size larger jeans. Whew!

While on the pier today, Son pointed out a Eastern Lubber Grasshopper doing just that.  We watched for a while as the soft, bright red grasshopper squeezed its way out of its old, black shell of a body.  The grasshopper at this point was highly vulnerable to any predators.  When shedding like this, the insect is soft and cannot move well. The one plus that the Eastern Lubber Grasshopper has over other grasshoppers is the fact that they are slightly toxic so most would be predators simply look elsewhere for a meal. Their coloring lets the world know that they are poisonous.  That red, black and (later in the mature) yellow almost always signals that the critter is one not to be eaten!  The bright redness of this critter will turn black as the new exoskeleton hardens.  Once it is fully mature the grasshopper will be dark with yellow and red markings.

After photographing the grasshopper shedding, Michael and I checked the soft-shell boxes for any crabs that might have gone through the same molting process.  These we will eat!  Sure enough, two crabs were extremely soft and had already discarded their old shells.  What amazes me about the crab's shedding is that I can never figure out just how they get out of their old shell!!!  For the longest time, I thought that I just had a dead crab in the traps along with the many live ones.  Now since we have separate boxes for the future soft-shells, it is easy to see that what I assumed was a dead crab is the cast off shell of a healthy soft-shelled crab.  The two in the picture are one and the same.  The crab on the right is an empty castoff while the crab on the left is soft.  It had just emerged from its old shell and could still not move.  At this point, there is no danger in holding the crab..it cannot hurt you with those normally sharp claws!  I examined the castoff molt but still could not figure out how in the world that crab managed to slither out of it!  Hmmm..Houdini had nothing on these crabs!  They are the true escape artists!

So the next time you feel the need for a shopping trip to buy a new outfit, think of the critters that can get theirs without heading to the mall!  They just peel off the old and can step out in a brand new outfit!  Critters amaze and amuse me to no end!!