miraculous

Five weeks ago, I wrote about tent caterpillars. (See April 25 posting) They were trundling about all over the place looking for hidden locations to spin their cocoons. Inside these woven bassinets, one of the most astonishing events in the entire natural world takes place: metamorphosis.

All of the organic matter that make up the hairy little caterpillar breaks down and somehow rearranges itself into a winged moth covered with power-like scales. For a while the little creature is unrecognizable moth goop. Most of the legs simply dissolve away—caterpillars have three pairs of true legs and up to five pairs of prolegs—and four wings emerge. The new winged creature no longer trundles; it flies. Sounds like science fiction.

After the tent caterpillars disappeared, I found the small woven cocoons here and there: attached to lawn furniture, inside the mailbox, tucked away in nooks and crannies all over the house.

Yesterday, I found an adult moth attached to its cocoon. Something had gone wrong and it was dead. In April, I called the tent caterpillar moth nondescript: pale brown with two light stripes. Perhaps I was being too cavalier, a mammalian chauvinist, because anything that goes through such a transformation is remarkable beyond words. My own maturation from toddler to teen to graying adult was a slight-of-hand card trick by comparison. Presto chango! (Well, puberty had a certain amount of angst but come on, I didn’t grow wings, just body hair. Wings would have been fun; pubescent fur was just an embarrassment.)

Side by side, the caterpillar and the moth have little resemblance. Who could possible guess that they were one and the same? Simply miraculous.

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