Webbing and caterpillars on Heart-leaved Keckiella leaf
Here is another photo of caterpillars of a Variable Checkerspot (Euphydryas chalcedona) butterfly on a web-shrouded stem of Climbing Penstemon aka Heart-leaved Keckiella (Keckiella cordifolia) in the Plantaginaceae plant family. You can see a few of the caterpillars along the bottom edge of the web. These caterpillars are web-spinners, and they eat the leaves as they cover them. They spin their creepy webs on the host plants in the summer. Then they form tough skins and drop to the forest floor to over-winter. Finally they emerge, eat and get fat, and pupate into adults next year. It's a strange cycle, but it works for them. Tents now mean butterflies next year. It's actually kind of late in the season to be finding them on this shrub, as most of the caterpillars on other shrubs in the woods have already dropped to the ground. Spiders aren't the only ones, so Happy Web Webnesday! (San Marcos Pass, 6 August 2018)
Webbing and caterpillars on Heart-leaved Keckiella leaf
Here is another photo of caterpillars of a Variable Checkerspot (Euphydryas chalcedona) butterfly on a web-shrouded stem of Climbing Penstemon aka Heart-leaved Keckiella (Keckiella cordifolia) in the Plantaginaceae plant family. You can see a few of the caterpillars along the bottom edge of the web. These caterpillars are web-spinners, and they eat the leaves as they cover them. They spin their creepy webs on the host plants in the summer. Then they form tough skins and drop to the forest floor to over-winter. Finally they emerge, eat and get fat, and pupate into adults next year. It's a strange cycle, but it works for them. Tents now mean butterflies next year. It's actually kind of late in the season to be finding them on this shrub, as most of the caterpillars on other shrubs in the woods have already dropped to the ground. Spiders aren't the only ones, so Happy Web Webnesday! (San Marcos Pass, 6 August 2018)