Small Plants & Even Smaller Insects
—and an Update on Our (No Longer Tiny) Little Friend, Part 1
First of all, I want to say Welcome! to all my new subscribers! I’m happy you’re here! 🤗 I gained more new subscribers in January than any other month except last March when I started this blog. 🎉
In last week’s post, I shared my Perpetual Journal art which included a little lupine plant—one of many wildflower plants that tend to pop up in our yard in January. I continued the wildflower plantie theme the next week in my Perpetual Journal, with art of small chia planties. We have dozens of these popping up in our yard!
🐛Update on Our (No Longer Tiny) Little Friend, Part 1
One of my subscribers recently asked me what’s happening with the Queen Butterfly caterpillar (a.k.a. Tiny Little Friend) I wrote about in my January 4 post Desert Milkweed—and a Tiny Little Friend!
Well!!!!! Do I have an update for you!!! Major excitement!!!
Hubby & I first saw our Tiny Little Friend (TLF) on 12/23/23, when TLF was only 0.3” long! From 12/23/23 to 1/25/24, we watched TLF munch away on milkweed leaves and grow to a whopping 1.5” in length! Here’s a to-scale photo comparing its growth over this period:
At 1.5”, we could no longer refer to our friend as a Tiny Little Friend, so we rechristened it Big Boy/Go Girl (BB/GG). I learned that while caterpillars are genetically male or female, their reproductive organs are internal so we laypeople can’t tell if a caterpillar is male or female. Thus, our new name with a slash.
On 1/26/24, we saw that BB/GG had started roaming off-world (leaving its milkweed plant). We didn’t know if this was because BB/GG needed more food (it had eaten almost all the leaves on its milkweed host plant by that point!) or if it was looking for a place to pupate (turn into a chrysalis). I’ve read that caterpillars will sometimes leave their host plants to pupate elsewhere.
We weren’t sure what BB/GG’s exact needs were, but with its tendency to roam off-world, it was obviously time for an intervention! So we did what any reasonable person would do………
To be continued next week in “Update on Our (No Longer Tiny) Little Friend, Part 2”.
📺 Wow! A cliffhanger!
I figure if TV shows and movies can have cliffhangers, why not blogs?
Share this post with your friends and family—and the world! 😃
Wow, what a story! And a blog cliffhanger! Can't wait until next week! Such suspense!
I’m one of your new followers! I subscribed because I recognized Tucson, where I lived for 23 years, in the flora and fauna you illustrate. As a writer, poet and artist, I could not resist the lure of a like-minded Tucsonan!