This is my post for #freewriters 2304 prompt drown them hosted by @mariannewest
Spring is here, I hope it is here, Mother Nature does have a way of surprising us when we least expect it. The honey bees are collecting their honey, and baby frogs are starting to hop around. But with the cute comes the not so cute.
And the not so cute are these things known as the oleander caterpillar, Syntomeida epilais Walker, I wonder why they put Walker at the end of two scientific names?
Anyway, it is spring, and with it comes bugs that want to eat everything green and they love the leaves of my desert rose plants, in one day they can eat every leaf from a plant.
When these "Walker" caterpillars turn to grasshoppers they continue to eat and eat and eat.
They also love to rest on anything that is the color red, I will find them lying on only red things like my fish basket and gas can.
I only thought they could eat a lot when they were catapillars and tiny grasshoppers, but when they grow, so does their hunger for plants. These huge grasshoppers will be everywhere. After I start to see them mating, it is not long before I start seeing less and less of them... until next spring.
Now for these buggers, the saddleback caterpillar. They call them saddlebacks because they have a brown spot on the middle of their back that is in the shape of a saddle. We pulled all of these off of our areca palms and the best thing I can say about them is to drown them they turn into a moth. Their whole purpose, after they turn into moths, is to mate and lay eggs. Although this species isn't a pollinator, it is an important species to know if you are interested in gardening or plants that pollinators use. This is why I say to drown them.
copied from Google Quick Search
photos are mine