An Incredible Camouflage Act, Autumn Discoveries, and a Tree-climbing Milkweed

For many living things, effective camouflage often means the difference between life and death. I have witnessed camouflage acts that left me amazed – snowshoe hares in winter, whose fur matched the color and reflectivity of snow perfectly, or the disappearing act of a snipe crouched in grass…but lately, I witnessed a larval insect whose camouflage made my jaw drop.

The creature had brashly exposed itself by falling from its perch in a velvet mesquite tree to land on a hand railing that had been painted white. It had gone from near invisibility to “How could you possibly not see me?” in the blink of an eye. Clinging to the railing was a slow-moving, two-inch caterpillar cryptically colored with dull greenish-gray skin. Hair-like filaments extended from its prolegs to form a peripheral fringe around the  caterpillar’s body. The filaments served to effectively break up its outline. As if that were not sufficient, the crypsis of this larval moth went a step further, for the caterpillar’s body was quite flattened. In cross section, most caterpillars are round or somewhat ovoid, but this one had a cross-sectional shape more like a thin, gently curved crescent. This unusual shape meant that the dull-green, fringed caterpillar could literally melt into a twig or a branch to cloak itself in obscurity like a ghost in a fog bank.

Later, some research revealed that the creature in question was a lappet moth caterpillar, possibly of the genus Gastropacha. The word “lappet” is used to describe a fold or flap in a  garment or headdress. Thus, lappet moths (family: Lasiocampidae) get their name from the hair-like fringes that project from their larvaes’ prolegs.

Take a walk in a local bosque late in late autumn and you are likely to see what look like little clumps of snow in the distance, gleaming white patches that really stand out on the dark-colored floor of the woodland. A closer look reveals a surprise; a mass of seeds from an unusual member of the dogbane family known as climbing milkweed, Funastrum (formerly Sarcostemma) cynanchoides. Unlike most other types of milkweed plants, climbing milkweed is a true vine, ascending to heights of 10-12 feet in tall shrubs and trees.

After pollination, the flowers of climbing milkweed form pods that eventually fall to the forest floor, where desiccation causes them to split open and unfurl a beautiful array of seeds embedded in a mass of gleaming, silvery-white filaments.