One day while watering my oregano, I couldn't help but notice that there was something long and dangling off a fragile stem. Wtf... a giant black caterpillar. zzz. I toyed with the idea of feeding them to those evil birds outside the apartment, but decided that they didn't any more encouragement to hang around my place.
Besides I was intrigued by the idea of owning my own butterfly. So I decided to keep him in a jar. I poked loads of holes in the paper before I used it as a lid for the insect jar. I fed him sweet potato leaves, since oregano is more precious to me. Surprisingly the caterpillar showed no prejudice towards yellowing leaves, chowing down with no problems (that also answered the question on why the oregano looked a bit naked on one side of the pot).
Guess my surprise when I found another caterpillar on the oregano the next day... Smaller with a white strip down its black back (the one in the foto above). So into the insect jar it went with loads of sweet potato leaves. They chowed them down really quickly.
I was looking forward to having them build cocoons, when one Saturday morning, I heard the glass shatter. I put it on the makeshift wooden crate, but it wasn't that unstable to fall over for no reason. When I went out, both caterpillars were gone. It wasn't even a windy morning. As I stood there pondering, I realized that the bloody birds did it...(these were the same crazy birds that kept attacking the lime plants, and when I surrounded them with bird nets in a see through fortress, resorted to attacking my orchid leaves).
Couldn't blame them. There wasn't a more filling breakfast than 2 fat caterpillars.
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