Painted ladies and a trip down a rabbit hole
A Painted Lady butterfly in the yard last summer
I’ve been quite fascinated by the caterpillars in my daughter’s kindergarten class (the project reminds me of a school tadpole project way back when I was that size). They’re Painted Lady butterflies (Vanessa cardui), a colourful local variety with fuzzy bodies and wings a molted colour combo of orange, grey, white and black.
At first, the caterpillars were so tiny. Over what seemed like a short period of time they ballooned to massive proportions, and now they’re wrapped up in their cocoons morphing into butterflies. When they emerge, the butterflies will be released into the wild, i.e. the patch of wilderness at the far corner of the school’s yard.
I took a trip to down into the gravity well of wikipedia to learn more about these butterflies (because the little person may ask). Adult Painted Lady butterflies feed on flower nectar and. they also slurp up aphid honeydew. Well, I have aphid’s aplenty in my garden, so the Painted Ladies may slurp away.
This honeydew is the sugar-rich, sticky liquid aphids excrete as they consume plant sap. This is good stuff--making it onto lots of animals menus including wasps, birds, geckos and more. Some bees collect it and make honeydew honey which supposedly has near-magical properties. I’ve never seen honeydew honey for sale, but I can’t help but think it’s a secretion of a secretion.
Ants farm aphids for their honeydew, a fun fact that likely came my way the same time as the tadpole project.
On a tangent, my yard also hosts ants who may be farming the aphids (entomology isn’t my strength). The ants of our local biome aren’t dangerous, so coexistence is my philosophy as long as the ants aren’t in my house or actively eating it.
The ones in the the yard are tiny, black ones I’ve always known as sugar ants. Nearly every time I go outside to dig, I come across these ant’s nest by shovelling into the heart of it (I don’t do this on purpose!). Once exposed, the ants grab their larvae, hold them over their heads and scurry about. I can’t help but anthropomorphize their actions into victims in a Godzilla movie screaming in terror as they try to find a safe place to hide. In that scenario, I get to be Godzilla.