I've been a very bad backyard zoologist. Not in a fifty shades kind of way, but in a not documenting a very cool process happening underneath my nose kind of way.
I have a fiddle leaf plant struggling away in my bathroom. I've done the whole day spa aesthetic where you stick your plant in a seagrass basket, but that's pretty much all I understand about being a plant parent. It's, ah, a tad neglected. But one of the many recent rainy days, I popped it outside to let nature do its thing and left it there overnight. I brought it back inside and thought nothing more of it. Until I noticed little black poos scattered on the bathroom floor.
I scoured under each of the leaves and finally discovered a little green looper caterpillar. I had flashbacks to the caterpillar I kept in a jar, a jar with holes in the lid I should point out, when I was young, that I named Cool Cat (see what I did there?) and that 'disappeared' one night. I know you released him Mum!!! Anyway, I decided I was going to protect this little cat with my life.
Needless to say, I started to water the plant to try and keep the caterpillar happy and day after day, as I looked at him while in the shower, I promised myself I'd get out and get some photos of the little fella for you guys. And day after day I did nothing. But shower. He grew in a very Hungry, Hungry Caterpillar kind of way until one day he just went missing. Oops. Cool Cat strikes again!
I mean, I tried finding him, checking that plant over and over again, and the walls and the floor but still no caterpillar. I eventually clocked it up to an unknowable mystery until one day a thick, silk blanket caught my eye - he was back and was slowly transforming into a moth. In my bathroom. And still, no photo!
Finally, the moth emerged and finally I decided to go and grab my camera! So here's the end result of a long process which would have been much more interesting if I was being a good backyard zoologist. You win some. You lose some. And this moth won, as it survived to be released back into the outside world.
Looper Moth
Northern Illawarra
