Months ago, I planted a mustard I believed to be Brassica rapa (油菜 in Chinese) scrap in soil, it has since regrown into a mature plant. A week or two ago, it begun to flower, lots of little yellow flowers and tiny seed pods started to form.
I have noticed the leaves at the bottom -- which also the bigger leaves -- have been nibbled. At first, I didn't pay much attention, it was just bits, then, yesterday, I realized that it's no nibbles at all, the plant is demolished, almost stripped clean.
Even before, I was looking for the culprit, some tiny snails. Little did I know, wrong suspects. I already couldn't find any of those snails, I was wondering how they could hide so well, then I finally saw those leaf-nomnom monsters, or tiny cabbage moth caterpillars.
There are two in the picture on the right, can you spot them? Another one in the photo below, see it?
The one above was on the leaf's vein, it's green. Yesterday, when I spotted them, the veins of leaves were green, because these little crawlers were on drive-through lanes, waiting for their turns to order some juicy greens.
Some were on underside of the leaves -- what's left of the leave, anyway -- that's even harder to spot without the sunlight shining through the leaves. The green skin is perfect camouflage, but what surprised me more is the size of their body, the adult knows which plant to lay eggs. This mustard is perfect for this species, the vein width is roughly the size of the caterpillar. Evolution at its best.
I might have peel off fifty of them, but today, I found four more. They are good and I might even find a couple tomorrow, but I am not mad, even this is the only mustard plant I have, the seed pods are still forming, I am fine with such destruction as long as I can still save some seeds.
I have noticed the leaves at the bottom -- which also the bigger leaves -- have been nibbled. At first, I didn't pay much attention, it was just bits, then, yesterday, I realized that it's no nibbles at all, the plant is demolished, almost stripped clean.
Even before, I was looking for the culprit, some tiny snails. Little did I know, wrong suspects. I already couldn't find any of those snails, I was wondering how they could hide so well, then I finally saw those leaf-nomnom monsters, or tiny cabbage moth caterpillars.There are two in the picture on the right, can you spot them? Another one in the photo below, see it?
The one above was on the leaf's vein, it's green. Yesterday, when I spotted them, the veins of leaves were green, because these little crawlers were on drive-through lanes, waiting for their turns to order some juicy greens.
Some were on underside of the leaves -- what's left of the leave, anyway -- that's even harder to spot without the sunlight shining through the leaves. The green skin is perfect camouflage, but what surprised me more is the size of their body, the adult knows which plant to lay eggs. This mustard is perfect for this species, the vein width is roughly the size of the caterpillar. Evolution at its best.
I might have peel off fifty of them, but today, I found four more. They are good and I might even find a couple tomorrow, but I am not mad, even this is the only mustard plant I have, the seed pods are still forming, I am fine with such destruction as long as I can still save some seeds.
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