Give and Take
life on the farm, with the grapes, and the caterpillars
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Sharing is a tricky balance. I’m trying to grow some grapes here, you see. And this little muncher is trying to grow into a Pandora Sphinx Moth! Hopefully, we can come to some sort of an understanding…🤣
The garden is full of surprises. One day, everything is familiar and expected, and the next evening, there are suddenly a whole handful of dramatically plump caterpillar pendants hanging from your grapevines!
It’s a strange feeling, honestly, because HOW IN THE WORLD DID WE MISS THEM UNTIL JUST NOW?!? Look at them!
They’re big, they’re bright, they’re lounging on the stems like they’ve just finished a yoga glass and are drifting dreamily into nirvana.
Where on earth were they the entire rest of the day when I was walking back and forth past this exact spot? That bit is a mystery I might never solve, but I will tell you everything else that I learned about them after getting over the flurry of shock and laughter and gentle poking and photography from every angle.
The Pandora Sphinx Moth is a very cool, very large moth, that is common all throughout the Eastern United States. We’ve never seen one yet, but now we definitely hope to!
Their caterpillar host plants include various species of grape and Virginia creeper - and since we don’t have Virginia creeper in our area, our local population will be 100% grape-fed 😳 They molt through five instars before reaching this particularly impressive final stage and constructing a cocoon.
And though you may think that a caterpillar is a caterpillar, there are a few more endearing traits remaining to explore.
First, he comes in an array of colors. Usually, you tell caterpillars apart by differences in color, but this cutie might mature into any one of a range of colors from spring green through shades of yellow to a rich, velvety orange. For no particular reason, not because of something he ate or for some act of camouflage, but just for pure jewel-toned fun!
And then, there are the feet. Just look at those tiny, half-moon, silvery, intricate little foot-pads! They cling tightly to a stem, or wave about looking for a next step, or fold together like little prayer-hands when not otherwise occupied.
And perhaps cutest of all, in this adult stage the caterpillar can tuck her head and six front legs right into the cozy folds of her front body segment, like snuggling a soft blanket around her shoulders.
I read in one source that the caterpillars do this when they are alarmed, but every single one that we saw was in this position from the start, and I really think they were snoozing after a heavy and satisfying leaf-fest. When we gently nudged them, which I’m sure was alarming, they actually poked their heads out at us and tried to grab us with their little front legs.
So my personal field observations indicate that this is less alarm-face and more food-coma-comfy-snooze-face. (Which, naturally, I relate to on a deeply primal level.)
To be honest, I was a little apprehensive about meeting our new friend. Because if you see a caterpillar looking similar to this one on one of your tomatoes, there can be some real crop devastation in your future! But, since we are just a little family farm for our own personal use, we try to take a balanced approach to really enjoying their quirky beauty while also protecting the food we’re going to eat. And while hungry Pandora Sphinx Moth caterpillars have been known to defoliate young grape vines, adult vines can typically sustain them without harm.
And these particular caterpillars didn’t seem to have eaten terribly many leaves, actually. Nothing at all compared to the Japanese Beetles, who we really had to stay on top of. And being in their native setting with plenty of natural competition and predators, they don’t tend to overpopulate or overwhelm. We should be able to gently coexist. I can spare some leaves and still harvest some crops.
Fingers crossed, I’ll even get to harvest some photos of a really stunning moth on some summery future evening, and probably some more comical caterpillars in autumn days to come. They take a little. I give a little. There’s plenty for both of us, and I’m happy to share! 💚🐛🧡
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Happy sigh. So beautiful!! So fascinating. Thanks so much. 🤗🤗
A truly marvelous post, Sydney! I love your photographs (and your daughter's), and certainly your right-there-in-the-field observations. Wishing you good chances of photographing the moths on the wing eventually!