You Know You're Doing Better When You Want to Feed Your Caterpillars

Such little cuties!

I found them on the orchid tree, a couple weeks back. I was trimming it within an inch of its life, getting it ready to burst into fall bloom. And on the underside of one leaf I saw a bunch of little orange caterpillars, all huddled together.

?

Perhaps this huddle is a ruse to confuse predators? It certainly doesn't look like a caterpillar when they do that.

Since I'm ever so fond of bugs, I plunked them into a plastic tub and have been putting in fresh orchid tree leaves every morning. Slowly but surely they started turning from orange to green.

One or two have passed on, succumbing to something Awful to Green Caterpillars. Fungus? Parasite? Don't know. Whatever it was, it cut the poor things in half. Maybe it was the other Mystery Stuff Under a Leaf that did it. (oh, mea culpa!)

So far, most are still around. If I'm late with the leaves, one or two may go walkabout. A couple days ago, retrieving one and handling it a bit too roughly, it stung me.

Another first. Never encountered a real-for-real stinging caterpillar before. Or not its sting, anyway. No harm done. It felt like an ant sting, but made no red mark, and only hurt for an hour or so.

What surprised me, as they grew and thrived, was how they still kept together. If they went wandering, they did it in a line, nose-to-tail. It was really quite funny to see.

Now they're getting big and rambunctious, and don't group together quite as carefully as before. But boy are they beautiful.

Little tykes are growing up.