Caterpillar Story

This is my beautiful Periwinkle plant. It's a very hardy plant and the best flowering plant in my garden (not like I plant a lot of flowering plants).

Then one day, it became "botak" (bald) overnight. We thought it was the rabbit but she seemed an unlikely suspect. Upon further inspection, we found the culprit. Can you see it?

Yeah, there were more than 15 of this "it". This was the last one on the plant that was not "murdered" yet. Decided I should take a picture of it before it's execution. Just in case you are a pro-caterpillar person, I have already been reprimanded by my brother for being a butterfly-killer. And yes, he is right. The plant is growing back it's leaves again. But I still really, really, really hate caterpillars/worms/leeches or anything that looks like it.

Well, guess what? The butterflies must have had a convention or something and spread the word about how wonderful my garden is to bring up their little ones. The victim this time is not my periwinkle plant but my curry plant. I didn't know caterpillars ate curry too :) This time, I put some of them in a jar. Sorry, I had to kill the rest. I'm pleading my case under the excuse of exercising pest control. Anyway, my kids were taking a good look at their "science experiment" when suddenly out darted this red color fork-like tongue. Immediately there were screams of "eeeeee" and "ewwwww". Take a look at the pictures below. What is that??????

I've never seen such things before (so disgusting and "geli"), so I went to Mr. Google for some answers. I believe it is called an osmeterium. It can emit a foul smell, so you could say it is a self defense mechanism. So many years of schooling and I never knew of such thing.

I have about 4 caterpillars in a jar... errr... actually 3 left (1 died). I hope they make it all the way to becoming a butterfly. Not just because butterflies are better looking than caterpillars, but also I want to know WHICH BUTTERFLY IS THIS!

P.S. You can read about my previous 3 caterpillar projects here:

• Science in a jar
• Caterpillars again
• Lime butterfly again