and does it's face have pollen on it??
Ok, where are my eyes?
#2
Soon he will be beautiful too!
Whadya mean "soon".....that caterpillar is beautiful now :-) But yes, he'll grow up to be a beautiful flutterfy too :-). Terrific shots! I love caterpillar "faces" :-)
-Julie
Very nice pictures. Did he "watch" you take the shots?
Art
Konkreteblond: I see you have West Texas Mist Flower or Gregg's Mist Flower. I have some here also. I have not been too happy with it's appearance but I have attributed that to the poor soil that we have here and/or the heat and humidity. A display of bloom such as your butterfly is sitting upon is rare, now that the temps are in the 80's, and the plant itself seems to want to lie down and wallow. It is not at all upright. Does yours have this characteristic? If yours grows upright or seems happy much of the time, I need to know what sort of conditions you provide for it. Does it need lots of humus/good garden soil or will it grow in sand or poor soil? Does it prefer full sun or part sun/part shade or does it require filtered shade/full shade in order to grow well. I took cuttings from a plant that I had last year and planted them last fall. We only got down to 32 degrees for about an hour all winter so the plants grew all during the winter and bloomed better during those cold months than they are now. The Queens and the Monarchs discovered them and every time I came by during the winter months, I would see them nectaring from the plants.
Wow!
Ed, you have way too many questions! LOL! I got this plant from a friend, who has a huge mass planting of it. I don't do anything to it. After you asked this, I started noticing that both places that I have it are getting less water than the others. My friend very rarely waters, she just mulches very heavily, so I'm guessing it doesn't take a lot of water. I have clay that is disguised on the top few inches with top soil and compost. I mulch with compost normally also. Both of mine are in full sun. I wouldn't think the heat or humidity bothered it because we have both here too. But we've been blessed this year with less humidity than last. I hoped this helped somewhat!
Have any of you seen a tomato hornworm turn into a moth? Got any pictures? I had a huge fat hornworm and was keeping him to watch him turn into a moth, but DH was grossed out by him living in our kitchen and decided to do away with him. But I must say, the hornworm is NOT beautiful by the standards of this caterpiller who is very pretty.
OK Konkrete,
I just happen to have two large BST cats myself, and one of them let me take some close-up pics yesterday while he was munching out on some fennel. Their eyes are very small, and I really couldn't see them until I magnified the pics after I took them. The BST cats have two nearly vertical black bars on their heads, and a black "dot" right above their mouths. On the sides of each black bar there is another black "dot", and the eyes (which are also black) are hidden within these black dots. The eyes are so small, I think they must only give the cat a rough idea of how light or dark it is.
Here is the view from the side (a red arrow points to the eyes).
Mark
Here is a view from the front.
Mark
What COOL shots Mark! WOW! Oh how I wish my camera had more megapixels!
-Julie
Mrk,
Gorgeous shots! What camera are you using? Is there much delay when you press the button?
Thanks,
Maggie
Some people use a Macro lens...mark, is that what you are using?
Wow, you even managed to make them look a little scary! lol I knew their eyes had to be pretty small because they don't act like they see very well. I'm going to go out today and see if I can find the face on my GF cat!
Thanks everyone!
My camera is a Nikon Coolpix 4500. I got it for Christmas in 2003. It has a macro mode that allows you to focus within 0.8 inches. I'm pretty sure that's how close I got in the 2 pics above. They are both cropped from larger pics. I can get good pics with the camera, but the autofocus works only about half of the time. So most of the pics I take end up being deleted. But thats the advantage of digital!!! There's not really a delay when you press the button, but it does take about 2 or 3 seconds to save each pic when you use the best resolution. I didn't know much about things like aperture and shutter priority until I got this camera, and starting experimenting. I also have a couple of good books on macro photography that have helped. I use the aperture priority mode most of the time. When you don't have to worry about film and processing costs, it really helps! The camera is 4.5 megapixels, which is low by todays standards, but it will probably be another couple of years before I get another digital camera. They are still becoming obsolete and outdated too fast for me.
Mark
Mark, that camera does a great job and you have obviously learned how to use it! My DH's camera is a Nikon also and we just got it in December. We have zoom lenses but not a macro. DH is thinking of getting a macro so we can take close ups. 0.8" is really close!
Mark, wow....focusing within less than an inch with a 4.5 megapixel camera! Cool! Mine is 4 megapixels, but I can only get to within 30 centimeters in macro mode if I'm using the full 4x optical zoom. So I do a LOT of zooming in when I get my pics onto the computer in order to show any decent close-ups of teeny garden critters.
-Julie
Great shots. I found one just like this on my dill plant last week.
so none of you cat lovers have seen a tomato hornworm turn into a moth?
Not me. :-(
new, I have had one a few years ago, but it didn't turn into a hummingbird moth. I can't remember what it was, just something tan. I did find a hummingbird moth pupae recently tho. BUT, it was apparently parasitized by something (nasty) and the cocoon broke open and these worms came out. BLECH! AAAHHH!!! At the time I didn't know what was going on so I was just being grossed out!
Anyways...some do turn into very pretty moths. Look up threads about hummingbird moths and you might find some pics.
The worms might have been a species of wasp's grubs.
Yep, it was probably the parasitic wasp that lays eggs into the hornworm. It is really disgusting looking. The hornworm will have all these white thingies sticking out of its back...eeewwee. yuk.
So blond, I bet that was pretty gross to see. Some peeps on the tomato forum will buy these wasps to put in their tomato gardens as a natural pest deterent. In other words, the hornworm (that will eat your mater plant to a nub in less than a day) will be the host to these wasps and then die from them. I'm surprised the one you saw got to the cocoon stage.
Hey New...I stumbled onto this, thought you might be interested still, in an answer :)
PiggyPoo :)
http://arizonensis.org/sonoran/fieldguide/arthropoda/manduca_quinqu.html
Wat to go, PiggyPoo!
Thanks piggypoo...well so now I know what the darn thing looks like as a moth. Still not so pretty hu? Kind of big too. I prefer the monarchs. ;)
You're right, not so pretty, but still is an amazing process, and interesting to watch.