Crumby Ovate, Ecologer Mode - Semi-Looper
Ye gods and little fishes, I exclaimed. What’s eating up the Turk’s Cap? Yep, that’s what I cried out by way of a diversion, for Rayetta had me by the ear, marching me along.
Hmmm. Crumby, as soon as you and Ray get the pole grease cleaned off Lomo’s roof access tree, and the residue disposed of in an environmentally friendly fashion, I want you to find out what tiny herbivores are eating up the Turk’s cap. And while you are at it, check for tiny herbivores on the Dicliptera brachiata. Those diclipteras are devoured.
So that’s how I entered ecologer mode for the balance of yesterday, seeking for herbivores amid the herbage. Considering the evidence for herbivory, one would surmise that tiny herbivores should be easy to espy. I mean by that, when a fairly large herb is half devoured, one would assume that one could easily locate the diners’ club crowd in the trench. However, that surmise is generally nonsense. Those tiny herbivores can be very sneaky. Perhaps, they chew with their mouths open. Roundly criticized for bad table manners, those tiny herbivores have been selected for sneaky eating. Now, the sneakiest ones, eat in the dark, avoiding criticism for chewing with their mouths open and concealing how fat they are getting. Then, once they have guzzled up all the herbage they can hold, off they waddle to some secret, sunless, hidey hole. Mercy!
Anyway, I did manage to espy one tiny herbivore. Hark! This tiny herbivore is a famous semi-looper. Eventually, with a little luck, it may become a moth, or muth (Noctuidae), and wind up in orbit around the porch light.
Semi-loopers are famous, or semi-famous, maybe, due to the peculiarity of possessing a pair of legs on their 10th and 11th segments. A full looper has no such legs in that region.
This semi-looper does not look all that fat to me. Plus, it is really little. Given that evidence I am led to speculate that it may not have eaten up all that Turk’s cap leaf by itself. I have doubt, so I can not, in good conscience, vote for conviction.
Hmmm. Crumby, as soon as you and Ray get the pole grease cleaned off Lomo’s roof access tree, and the residue disposed of in an environmentally friendly fashion, I want you to find out what tiny herbivores are eating up the Turk’s cap. And while you are at it, check for tiny herbivores on the Dicliptera brachiata. Those diclipteras are devoured.
So that’s how I entered ecologer mode for the balance of yesterday, seeking for herbivores amid the herbage. Considering the evidence for herbivory, one would surmise that tiny herbivores should be easy to espy. I mean by that, when a fairly large herb is half devoured, one would assume that one could easily locate the diners’ club crowd in the trench. However, that surmise is generally nonsense. Those tiny herbivores can be very sneaky. Perhaps, they chew with their mouths open. Roundly criticized for bad table manners, those tiny herbivores have been selected for sneaky eating. Now, the sneakiest ones, eat in the dark, avoiding criticism for chewing with their mouths open and concealing how fat they are getting. Then, once they have guzzled up all the herbage they can hold, off they waddle to some secret, sunless, hidey hole. Mercy!
Anyway, I did manage to espy one tiny herbivore. Hark! This tiny herbivore is a famous semi-looper. Eventually, with a little luck, it may become a moth, or muth (Noctuidae), and wind up in orbit around the porch light. Semi-loopers are famous, or semi-famous, maybe, due to the peculiarity of possessing a pair of legs on their 10th and 11th segments. A full looper has no such legs in that region.
This semi-looper does not look all that fat to me. Plus, it is really little. Given that evidence I am led to speculate that it may not have eaten up all that Turk’s cap leaf by itself. I have doubt, so I can not, in good conscience, vote for conviction.
posted by ray pistrum at Sunday, June 03, 2007
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