Wait...When did flowers grow peas?

             A week ago (9/9/11) I went on a class trip to a plant show about two hours away from the college campus that I attend. While I was there I found a tricolor ginger plant that I just fell in love with. Of course I bought it and very nearly had it lost to my grasp when a man won a door prize for the booth (where my plant was residing) and had chosen to take the ginger plant.

Tricolor Ginger

Penta

 

 

 

                        When I talked to the man that was overseeing the booth, he chased down the winner, explained the situation, and quickly returned the pretty multicolored thing to my possession. Before we (my classmates, teacher, and I) left, the man came up to me and plopped a pot of Penta flowers in my hands as thanks for not being upset about the predicament.

Tersa Sphinx Caterpillar

                          Now, two days ago (9/15/11) I removed the dead foliage from my cute flower plant. Also, failing to state earlier, I have my Penta in my bathroom, having no where else to put it. Going to the part of the story that I have been dying to tell, earlier I found a caterpillar perched on my flowers. This normally would not surprise me, had the plant been outside or even in the living room, but this plant is IN MY BATHROOM!! Imagine the look on my face when I did a quadruple take, thinking that my flowers could not be growing a pea pod. Being the naturally curious person I am, I reached out to grab it and instead of the hard husk that is normally the casing of a pea pod that I was expecting, I felt a squishy softness under my fingers and then to just blow my mind away completely, the thing started swinging its head back and forth like a club!! That is definitely not a normal behavior for a pea pod! I went straight to the computer (after showing my uncle, who is the only other person in the house at the moment, my discovery) and started doing some heavy duty research, trying to figure out what this crazy little bugger was. It has a little stinger on its tail end, six brown spots going down each of its sides, and two very large, round, black eye spots on what I thought at first was its club like head.

Tersa Sphinx Hummingbird Moth

                                     That there is my new buddy, the Tersa Sphinx Hummingbird Caterpillar. If I want it to cocoon and turn into the Moth, it will quite quickly devour the foliage of my plant and 10 to 12 days from then will turn into the Moth it was born to be! And as an added plus to this unexpected surprise, my plant will survive its taxing ordeal to flower another day!












                                           Overall, I am rather pleased that I have an opportunity to raise a caterpillar. I really hope it lives through this thing because I don't know if I will get another chance to try again. Sometimes I forget that life does not always have a redo button, if it ever did in the first place. Wish my luck, and I will keep updates on how the little bugger is doin.

                                                ~Nomers~