BootsnAll Travel Network



Invasion of the Green Caterpillars

At first, the only signs of past life in the house were the papery, dried-out carcasses of flies on the windowsills, but now the place is gradually being recolonized by local wildlife. Yesterday I spotted a woodlouse crawl slowly across the foorboards and the first tiny spiders have started to appear in the bathroom and kitchen—no doubt they will grow much bigger. But an oddity that puzzles me is The Invasion of the Green Caterpillars.

On a dark and stormy night about a week ago, I spotted the first specimen stuck to the outside of the kitchen window. How did it get there? What is a feeding stage doing at this time of year, alive? —Especially since our landlord has paved over the ‘garden’ with slabs of concrete? Where would it find food? Could it have been carried by the wind? I doubt it, it was about an inch long.

I thought a bit about the mutagenic effects of ionising radiation but then dismissed that thought. I’m reading too much Science Fiction of late.

I had forgotten all about this little incident until I got up from the sofa yesterday evening to fetch something from the kitchen and upon my return—right there on a cushion on the sofa in our lounge—there was another inch-long lime-green caterpillar with a tiny yellow stripe on either side of its body, curled up into a ‘C’-shape. Perhaps this really was an invasion by Alien Super Caterpillars?

OK, so think: The only reliable food source at this time of year are evergreens, probably needle trees. And then it came to me: there is a cypress hedge around the corner where a path leads to the road and every time we walk down there the branches brush against us. These caterpillars must feed on the hedge, as unlikely as that seems.

A quick search on the net turned out that this was indeed the case. The caterpillars are those of the Cypress Pug (Eupithecia phoeniceata) which do feed in the winter. After performing an on-the-spot raindance when I found that thing curled up on our sofa, I still keep checking, brushing and beating at my clothes every time I walk past that hedge. There must be a great number of them and, of course, cute caterpillars grow into scary moths! They fly August to September. Maybe I can arrange to be out of the country around then…

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