Insects

In August, Ella loves to go to the garden and search the Dill Weed for these caterpillars. They will become Swallowtail Butterflies. She carries them around and puts them back where she found them.

Maret is holding a Tobacco Hormworm, thick as her finger, soft as a marshmallow. Or maybe, given its size, I should say it is holding her. We always called these Tomato Hornworms but the book I just checked tells me otherwise.

We find them on the tomato plants where they can quickly denude entire branches. We spent a morning plucking them off the plants which isn't easy. You can sit and stare right at them and not see them, they are so perfectly camouflaged. Then we feed them to the chickens. It makes the chickens very happy.

This is a Half-banded Toper or a Red Skimmer. Either way, it didn't want to be held.

In my hand is a fat, hard shelled Lubber Grasshopper. You find them on the paved roads eating other dead grasshoppers. When they jump they tumble and bounce around, rarely landing on their feet.

Ella holding a Cicada. They are responsible for that incessant buzzing that sounds like some kind of deadly electrical short circuit. Ella will assure that when you hold them, however, they are unbelievably ticklish. She was giggling and laughing the entire time.

Comments

[fey]

You say tomato, I say.......my research shows that tobacco and tomato are in the same family of plants sooooooooooo it would be easy for this ol bug to make the leap.

http://www.biodiversityexplorer.org/plants/solanaceae/

feywit

[Jeff]

Wow, they're beautiful.

[Penny]

Wonderful photos! Thanks.