Hi fellow Hiveians,
Today I saw some great little critters that were fairly late into the season!
Late Season Critters
One of the things I’ve been trying to spend more time noticing are the small things in life! This comes in all shapes and sizes that’s for sure. This recent bout of it is seeing some insects that I may not have noticed before but certainly enjoyed seeing!
When our son and I were taking apart the potted garden we had developed since it was fall with the stuff all dying, we saw a fun bunch of these big caterpillars! I don’t know what kind of butterfly or moth they will turn into but these things were quite large. It was nice to see them and even though we were taking everything down, we left a tomato or two for them to enjoy. The caterpillars certainly have loved to eat our tomatoes this year let me tell you lol. I didn’t mind that they were eating them though, after all they turn into pollinators one day so I didn’t want to kill them.
I had some time to myself the other day when we were out and I decided to go exploring a new place. It turned out to be a lot of fun and a great experience! In that exploration I was able to see this awesome looking grasshopper. Sometimes I see one or two around and they instantly hop away trying to not get eaten by something or squished. This one was brave!
I tried to give him a little nudge on the butt with my finger and he wasn’t fazed by it at all. He stood there and moved a tiny bit but was largely just hanging out with me. I wasn’t sure if that was the smartest since they tend to get eaten by doing that but obviously this one wasn’t too worried lol.
The little things we notice can be great. There’s so much focus on spending time to rush between tasks that I think we are losing a lot of our sense of nature and things around us. I have been trying to slow down and look at things here and there so that I can try to appreciate more things in life. It often works but sometimes doesn’t lol. This time it did!
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Your giant caterpillar looks like a Death's head hawk moth. They bury themselves underground over winter and the moth emerges in late spring. Try not to disturb the soil in those pots over winter or if you do and discover a huge pupa, be sure to leave it as you found it
That’s great thank you for the direction on that! We didn’t know what it was and they disappeared lol so they could have dug themselves in the dirt! One of them was giant that’s for sure so it probably dug itself.
We were gonna get rid of all the dirt in the pots but I think I’ll leave the two or three that were around this spot alone so that if they did do that they can sprout in the spring! I’m gonna look that one up and show our son, he loved the look of the caterpillar!
I looked it up based on what you were saying and this one is a bit different but very similar to the one you shared! It’s what I think is a tomato hornworm. The picture looks correct and it’s in America where the one you shared seemed to be primarily in Europe and Asia.
https://www.almanac.com/pest/tomato-hornworms