A wikipedia moment!

[Frederick W. Schueler]

Everyone,

In - Hairy autumnal wanderers. North Grenville Times, 11(42):10, 26
October 2023 - https://ngtimes.ca/hairy-autumnal-wanderers/ - we
describe how the red-skinned black-haired woolly bear caterpillars of
Giant Leopard Moths (Hypercompe scribonia) were first seen here in 2017.

We hadn't seen any of there caterpillars this year until a couple of
days ago, when there was one in the outhouse (a favourite resort of
woolly bear caterpillars of both species), and I scooped it up to see if
it might pupate and emerge as a moth in captivity, since we've never
seen an adult.

Wikipedia had noted that Poke, which we introduced here in 2008 in an
act of assisted migration -
http://www.doingnaturalhistory.com/2020/12/poke-introduction.html - was
a food plant of these caterpillars, and while we've never seen what
looked like caterpillar damage on our Poke plants, I filled the jar
holding the caterpillar with Poke leaves. Just now, I see that the
caterpillar is hanging up among the leaves, and has converted quite a
lot of it into 4 mm spherical fecal pellets.

The usual Wikipedia moment is to observe something novel & surprising,
and then find it's a well-known phenomenon, and it's nice here to
confirm a well-known phenomenon.

fred.
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---------Frederick W. Schueler & Aleta Karstad ------------
Fragile Inheritance Natural History - https://fragileinheritance.ca/
6 St-Lawrence Street Bishops Mills, RR#2 Oxford Station, Ontario K0G 1T0
on the Smiths Falls Limestone Plain 44.87156° N 75.70095° W
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