Adopting a Caterpillar, and Other Adventures

By Anna Kuchment | July 13, 2011 | 6

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For the past few weeks, my daughter and I have been immersed in a common childhood ritual: observing the lifecycle of a caterpillar. Unlike many families, though, we didn’t get the caterpillar from a mail-order kit. Rather, it arrived in our apartment aboard a pink begonia plant that we’d bought at the local farmer’s market. When my daughter discovered the insect clinging to the underside of a leaf, it was love at first sight, and I didn’t have the heart to put it outside.

Eliza with the caterpillar (look closely at her hand) before it doubled in size

And so began a brief adventure in entomology that’s still going. What started as a skinny, inch-long creature quickly grew into a fuzzy brown and black smudge that looked to be about twice its original length and three times its original girth. All the while, our guest was eating through the begonia leaves at an astounding pace – and leaving an equally astounding amount of waste, in the form of little black pellet balls, all over my windowsill. My daughter, Eliza, however, was smitten. Every morning and every night, Eliza, who is 5, would pluck the caterpillar off the plant and let it crawl across her fingers and up her arms. As it kept growing and growing and eating and eating, I decided to call on an expert for advice, just to make sure I wasn’t inadvertently harming the creature – or my daughter, for that matter.

Here’s what I learned:

Our caterpillar is a “woolly bear,” from the arctiidae family, said Jeffrey Miller, an entomologist at Oregon State University after I sent him a photo. It would grow into a moth, not a butterfly. To identify any caterpillar in the wild, get a copy of Caterpillars of Eastern North America, by David L. Wagner, an entomologist at the University of Connecticut, or go to his terrific U.S.-wide Web site. Miller has a detailed guide to Pacific Northwest caterpillars here.
Unlike many caterpillars, a woolly bear goes through a “wandering” stage just before weaving its cocoon, so Miller urged me to sequester it ASAP, which I did using a plastic Tupperware container topped with some gauze that I held in place with a rubber band. Eliza and I cleaned the container every day and gave it fresh begonia leaves, but no water, because, as Miller said, “they will drown themselves.”
Wild vs. kits. Kits are simpler, because everything’s already there for you. But, to me, catching a caterpillar in nature was much more fun. Miller also noted that butterflies born from kits would most likely not be native to the region where you live. “You don’t want to mix genes from different populations, because you don’t know the consequences,” he says. “For Monarch butterflies, the consequence would be confusion in how and where to migrate.” The tricky part of adopting a caterpillar from the wild will be figuring out what it likes to eat; in an ideal world, you’d find a baby caterpillar that is still on the leaf where it hatched. But the guides mentioned above should help with that as well.
To make caterpillar observation more fun for kids, Miller suggested observing two or more caterpillars at a time, and making a race out of which will weave its cocoon first. Keep one in a cool place, and one in a hot place to observe how warmer temperatures help them grow faster.

Here are some other entomology projects and events to look into. We might try these this summer as well.

Help Cornell University scientists track U.S. ladybug populations.

Join Nature’s Notebook, a national plant and animal phenology observation program in which Scientific American is a partner.

If you happen to live near Penn State University, they host an annual Great Insect Fair at their University Park campus. This year’s is on Sept. 17, 2011.

As for our project, about a week ago, the caterpillar wove a small hairy cocoon for itself against the gauze top of its plastic container. I feel as nervous as an expectant parent. Will it come out okay? When will it emerge? What will it look like? Stay tuned.

Do you have successful entomology projects to share, or other tips? Please leave a comment.

About the Author: Anna Kuchment edits the Advances news section for Scientific American and was previously a reporter, writer and editor with Newsweek magazine. Her first book, “The Forgotten Cure,” about bacteriophage viruses and their potential as weapons against antibiotic resistance, will be published in the fall of 2011 by Copernicus Books. Follow on Twitter @akuchment.

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The views expressed are those of the author and are not necessarily those of Scientific American.

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6 Comments

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1. Symbiartic.km 4:41 pm 07/13/2011

Woolly bear! Is that the same species that lives in the Arctic? In our fieldwork on Ellesmere Is. we found numerous woolly bear caterpillars that were wandering around the tundra. According to E. C. Pielou, author of A Naturalist’s Guide to the Arctic, the Arctic woolly bears have a life cycle that spans 13 years. Every winter they freeze solid and come spring, they thaw out and continue munching along. Then they have just one short summer to turn into a moth, find a mate, and reproduce. We were very careful not to step on any after learning that… imagine 12 years in and SQUASH! Terrible.
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2. Melissa Lott 10:43 am 07/14/2011

What fun! Especially like this statement:

“Wild vs. kits. Kits are simpler, because everything’s already there for you. But, to me, catching a caterpillar in nature was much more fun. Miller also noted that butterflies born from kits would most likely not be native to the region where you live…”

Makes me think about the potential unintended consequences of seemingly simple things (like watching a caterpillar transform into a butterfly or moth) – and the fun that we can have interacting with nature in our area (instead of nature in the mailbox).

This post also brought to mind Richard Louv’s book about nature deficit disorder. Watching a caterpillar crawl around might seem simple, but it has an underlying importance that we might not see.

Thanks for sharing.
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3. LAR1975 5:40 pm 07/18/2011

I don’t have an entomological project to share per se, but I wanted to make a few late-in-the-day comments.
I don’t have a strong educational science background, but through work experiences and sheer enthusiasm, I’ve gained some knowledge. I hope to impress upon our kids, especially our daughter, the values of inquisitiveness and skepticism, as well as an appreciation for the natural world and environment.
We read Scientific American and National Geographic with and to both kids whenever we can, and we’ve also found the book Science Play! by Jill Frankel Hauser to be a great source. (We also listen to Science Friday on NPR whenever we can; that probably pertains more to me than to them at this point, however!) In general, we don’t watch much television, but we’ve found Sid the Science Kid sometimes works well to spark our daughter’s budding science interest, as do the science-themed Sesame Street episodes and skits.
In lieu of a project, I would finally just share what we do. When we’re at the playground or out in our yard or garden, for instance, we’re usually just as interested in the trees, weeds, insects, rocks, moss, and animals (present or recent evidence thereof) as in the climbing and playing. I try to informally go through the scientific method with them (the 3 1/2-year-old anyway), saying something like “why do you think all those ants are in this spot” or “what do you think will happen if we throw a little rock into the pond versus a large one”? We also sometimes keep a journal of our observations, though neither child can write proficiently just yet. I also think simply being effusive about learning alongside them and sharing experiences or terminology like “bioluminescence,” which we talked about observing fireflies one dusk, will help them not be intimidated later on by “big” or scientific, medical, or mathematical terms or daunting equations or questions.
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4. Anna Kuchment 10:29 am 07/27/2011

Thanks so much for your thoughtful comment and for reading SA to your kids. I hope you stick with my blog and that you find it helpful.
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5. gracebaynes 12:26 pm 07/27/2011

Anna, I can’t wait to hear what happens to your daughter’s caterpillar. When I was a kid and lived in Maine, we observed some Monarch caterpillars cocoon and then become butterflies. (We caught the caterpillars in the back yard). My dad is a keen photographer, so he set up a time-lapse camera to capture the exact moment they ‘hatched’. Happy memories, and a reminder of how my own parents helped feed their ‘budding scientist’. Look forward to the next installment!
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6. interior design 6:50 pm 12/27/2011

thanks for share this informative article.
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