So, as summer gets into full swing (although the crazy cold windy days can stop any time now), I started the summer off by catching an armyworm in the backyard. Dad and I made a home for it in an old peach jar which we stuffed with fresh elm leaves and a couple twigs. Wait, what? You don't know what an armyworm is? Well, let me show you...
So, that's a couple of typical armyworm pics for ya. They can range in color from dark greens to browns with white and yellow stripe highlights. They're totally hairless and seem to be found mostly on the ground. We captured ours and placed in the peach jar where he stayed pretty much on the bottom of the jar, munching on all the yummy greens at his level. Kinda lazy crawlers, now that I think about it.
Within a few days of his capture, three or four I think, we woke to find a small brown chrysalis that looked like this:
We pulled the leaves out, leaving the sticks behind, and waited to see what would emerge. About two weeks later, on this very morning, we saw this winged critter at the top of the jar...
We grew a moth! How seriously cool is that?! Haven't ever done anything quite like that before. It was fun to watch it every day and see how things changed. I took the moth with me to school today to show my class and then I will release it back into the wild to be eaten, most likely, by a scrub jay, who will eat just about anything.
All this talk about critters has made me long for a new Critters in my World post. Perhaps we'll do that next.
Buggin' out for now. Hunter
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