It's important to spend time with your plants! Even when I'm very busy I try to find at least a few minutes a day to look over my collection. This gives me a chance to actually enjoy the weird little carnivores I spend so much time and effort (and money!) collecting and cultivating. It also gives me a chance to check on the health of the plants, problems with pests, all that sort of stuff.
Today while I was looking things over I spotted something very weird on one of my
Drosera binata clones.
![On the real though, tell me that trayscape doesn't look pretty fly. Drosera binata with visitor in the tray](https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3859/14655697757_6505dac2ce_c.jpg) |
I almost didn't notice it at first! |
Do you see it? On the laminae of that half-opened orange-colored leaf right in the middle? Computer, enhance image.
![I got a close-up look through my loupe and yep, that sure some caterpillar I don't know anything about. Caterpillar close-up on Drosera binata leaf](https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3858/14862114523_8429459d4c_c.jpg) |
Up close and personal with the weird little bug. |
Huh. Now where did
you come from?
It appears to be some sort of caterpillar which must have snuck in from outside, although I'm a little perplexed about how. I brought a
Drosera capensis in from outside recently, but it's in a separate tray, and there's a big, deep gap between them, to say nothing of all the water. Nothing else has migrated in from outside. It's quite perplexing.
This little bugger seems to have done a bit of damage. Besides this leaf, the development of which seems to have been halted, there were two others I noticed that had a bit of webby silky looking stuff on them and withered tips.
![I guess I can't be sure if the caterpillar did this damage, but I figured it couldn't hurt to trim off. Damaged leaves from Drosera binata](https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3873/14819279176_ce7e87a717_c.jpg) |
Two damaged leaves that I trimmed. |
If these are the product of this little bug (and that's all I can figure at this point, since the rest of the plant is growing fine), I definitely don't want to let it mature into some egg-laying moth or other. Still, I couldn't quite bring myself to just toss it outside and kill it – I was too curious.
![Seriously though this was some Magic School Bus-style bug housing shit. Caterpillar and Drosera binata leaf in a crude terrarium](https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3857/14839889264_6fca906df6_c.jpg) |
This feels like some 2nd grade science project. |
This is a crude little terrarium made of a mason jar and some old window screen to see if the little dude develops into anything menacing. There's a layer of pebbles at the bottom, along with some water to keep the trimmed
D. binata leaf hydrated. It's back under my lights, and I guess we'll see how it goes!
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