The Snazzy Gentleman (Lady?)

I recently mentioned that every time I go out on the Sycamore Greenway I discover a new favorite bug. After several decades on this earth, I am consistently finding new creatures that I’ve never encountered, not off in the distant woods or wildlife refuges but just down the street. I just had to learn to slow down and look.

And it doesn’t even have to be down the street…they are right in my own suburban backyard! Out one day taking photos of bees on the Ratibida pinnata, I noticed one of the flowers had little yellow petals sticking up from the normally smoothish brown cone of its head. That’s odd, I think, and move in to inspect this odd floral mutation.

And it started crawling away! It was not part of the flower but rather a tiny little brownish inchworm with pieces of bright yellow petals stuck to its back, an effective camouflage rendering it nearly invisible while it was motionless.

Fascinated, I did some research and quickly learned my dapper little inchworm was an (aptly-named) Camouflaged Looper (Synchlora aerata), the larval form of a tiny green moth known as the Wavy-lined Emerald. These adorable little inchworms eat a variety of flowers, and will snip tiny pieces of petals to affix to their bodies using silk. This allows them to feed on a variety of flowers and disguise themselves at each different kind (discarding old petals and adding new), rather than being limited to the specific host plant with which one’s naked body blends in. When it is ready to pupate, it will trade its colorful floral coat for one made up of foliage, and affix itself to a stem where it will remain until it emerges in all its mothy splendor.

Once I discovered the first camouflaged looper, I soon noticed several others, both in my garden and on the Greenway. Curious to see its fashion sense in action, I kidnapped one and brought it to a flower pot on my deck filled with orange nasturtiums. I also plucked a variety of different-colored flowers from the garden and stuck them in the pot as well (the camouflaged looper normally likes composite flowers so I was sure to grab several of those). I placed the yellow-petaled worm on a rich purple cluster of ironweed flowers and let it do its thing.

A couple hours later, the worm (as it was now affectionately known) had indeed placed a smattering of purple petals among its original yellow clothing. For the next couple of days, every time I came home I would go inspect the worm to see what it was up to, spending many minutes in the blazing sun on my deck searching for the clever little guy and hoping he hadn’t fallen to the ground or been plucked up by a hungry sparrow.

Too quickly–after barely two outfit changes–the worm covered itself in dried brown nasturtium leaves and hunkered down on a stem a few inches below the flowers. I couldn’t see its little body underneath all the snippets of leaves, hard as I tried to spot the shape of a cocoon.

I have never seen a Wavy-lined Emerald moth, though they must be in the area given the abundance of larvae. My worm has been safely ensconced in a white mesh cube designed to keep Monarch caterpillars, and hopefully before too long I will see my first little green moth.

So stop and watch the flowers for a few minutes this week. You never know what you will find!

Originally published in Sycamore Greenway Friends.