Caterpillars
The first
photo taken last week at Tupah shows a tree of about 2 ft in diameter with a
patch of rotten tree bark at the base of the trunk. Looking close, they are in fact hairy and
eerie caterpillars of up to 3 inches in length. I was able to spot and identify
them because this is the second time I have seen such caterpillars. The first
time I saw them at the base of my jambu air tree trunk in front of my house.
They camouflaged themselves by blending with the tree bark so well that no one
saw them until many days later despite that we walked past them within a few
feet every day.
Then one
evening after dark we saw them missing from the area they usually stayed. But
in the following morning, we saw them appeared again in the same spot. The
following night, they disappeared again and reappeared on the same spot next
day. One day, we decided to wait to see what happened when night bega to
fall. At about 7:30pm, one of the caterpillars started to crawl up the tree
along a trunk. The others then followed the leader in a line, a long line (Last
Photo). On the top, we saw them chewing up leaves. Next morning, before 7am,
they were already down on the same spot again, although we did know what time
they started coming back down. After a few weeks, they disappeared altogether.
They were likely the caterpillars of a certain type of moths.
Insects do exhibit
intelligence in organization.
(May 2016,
Tupah, Kedah)
