Hello, Sparky here.
Spring now, summer an hour later,
dreaming of mangoes in the morn,
just to be wishing away summer, soon after.
Such is the situation now. Things in nature are always
transient but it has always been a gentle movement like the swaying of leaves
in the breeze but what we are experiencing now is akin to thunder and lightning
– you never know where it will strike next. Human-induced Climate change is
staring us in the face and all of us are able to feel its fury, except the
humans themselves. This is such a sad commentary on the ‘most intelligent of
all life forms’ on the planet.
All of us make mistakes but we usually make amends and
tune our ways. Mother Nature is ever watchful and benevolent, even when one
keeps blundering she gives us enough warnings before she unleashes her fury on
us. Have you ever heard of a lion that killed all the herbivores in his range,
just because he could?
Anyway, I for one believe that mistakes should be such
that either you learn from it and correct it or you can laugh at it. If it’s
neither of that then you are doomed and probably deserve what’s coming.
Enough with the innuendo. Let me tell you of a mistake
that Civvy & Kiwi made this week which sent the whole of Banyan tree
residents into raptures. The 2 monkeys had gone exploring around the island.
Their daily excursions from the Banyan tree are for checking out if the mangoes
in the Mango tree are ripe enough to be feasted on but for reasons that they
best know themselves, they do not want others to find out about it. If I were
to venture a guess, it would be because if Mr. Goldback were to know of their
reason for their excursions he would be disgusted into saying, ‘Are you monkeys
or humans, can’t you smell from here if the mangoes are ripe?’
Now, back to their excursion. They had ventured a little
way off their usual course early in the week and had found a bush covered with
what they thought was bird poop but what they found funny was it didn’t smell
like poop. The curious monkeys that they are, they wanted to find out which
bird’s poop didn’t raise a stink. So, while they were making plans to consult a
few birds about it, Kiwi’s mother wondering what the monkeys were up to went
along with them to inspect the bush and the ‘stink-less’ poop.
When the three of them returned to Banyan, the mother
looked angry and the 2 teenagers looked genuinely perplexed. That’s how matters
rested for a day but the next day they came to me and asked if I knew of any
bird whose poop ‘grew’. I laughed at their theory and said they take a look at
it again the next day and report back on how much it has grown since their last
visit.
The next day, having confirmed that the poop was indeed
growing, the curious teens who were unable to account for the fact that the
grown-ups weren’t taking them seriously, changed tack and approached the
mystery in another way. They told their mothers that there was a lot of bird
poop on the far off part of the island where no birds reside so some birds were
paying nocturnal visits to Banyan Island. ‘Shouldn’t we find out who they are?’
Kiwi’s mother who had all along thought they were playing
a prank on her realised they were really in the dark and told them that it
wasn’t bird poop but caterpillars. For once, those two were impressed. A
bird-poop mimicking caterpillar wasn’t something they had heard of or seen
before.
That wasn’t the end of this episode either. 2 days later
they came back to the Banyan in a panic and told us that overnight someone has
‘replaced’ the dark-green poop caterpillars with bright green ones. I asked them if they were sure if the
caterpillars had been replaced and not actually been painted? They thought I
was being funny. When Kiwi’s mom asked if these new ones ‘smell’ they went away
lamenting the fact that no one was taking them seriously.
That is how it is with teenagers. They take themselves
too seriously and they think no one else takes them seriously. Funny part of
this episode was for once those 2 monkeys were genuinely perplexed and the rest
of us were having fun at their expense.
We all knew from day 1 when they described the poop on
the bush that they were talking of caterpillars of Swallowtail butterfly. The
metamorphosis of a butterfly is common knowledge what isn’t known as commonly
is that many insects in the larval stage which is what a caterpillar is, has
different sub-stages called ‘instar’.
Caterpillars have their skeleton on the outside unlike us
who have it within us, which means as they grow their skin cannot grow because
of the skeleton which limits its growth, so it first grows the new skin beneath
the old skin and then it sheds the old skin bringing forward the bigger skin.
This process is called ‘molting’. What the monkeys saw were the various instars
of the Swallowtail butterfly. The first few instars do indeed resemble a bird
poop to appear unattractive and inedible to birds. Then towards the later stages
they come to become something totally different from their poop-like appearance
with even lines and streaks on them. It’s indeed an experience to see
caterpillars stuff themselves silly, grow big and fat then go to sleep before
emerging as a beautiful butterfly.
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| The poop mimicking Swallowtail caterpillar on a lemon plant |
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| The fifth Instar of the Swallowtail caterpillar |
This was explained in detail to the two monkeys. They now
keep going back to the far-off bush to check what the caterpillars have turned themselves
into next while checking on the mangoes as well without needing to give a reason
for the daily excursions. Another thing about their age is everything is new and
there’s that thirst to keep learning. If only we can find a way to keep doing that
all our lives, we will never lack for a purpose to living or happiness in life.
See you all next week. In the meanwhile, if
you would like to write to me, email me at Sparkyatbanyan@gmail.com
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