Post by grassfan on Aug 25, 2020 12:01:16 GMT -8
I live in Tenerife, and there have been an unusual number of reports on the internet this year from people on the island about the number of Death's Head Hawk Moth caterpillars which people have found it seems almost everywhere. Because they are so big and unusual most people have just asked for identification. My query is more specific because I am baffled.
The scenario is this: Cannabis grown for own use is perfectly legal here, and so I grow four or five plants outside every year and we use it primarily for the pain relief from arthritis from which my wife suffers quite badly. She has learnt that if only she can get a good night's sleep, the pains are manageable, and so I try to cultivate a crop with soporific qualities in addition to pain relief. Most people are aware the the cannabis plant has very distinctive leaves and an even more distinctive flower which is surrounded by what people call sugar leaves. When at a late stage of flowering, the flowers and sugar leaves are covered in trichomes, which are tiny hair-like protuberances which contain the chemicals which cannabis growers seek.
This year we have had an infestation of Death's Head Hawk Moth larvae. I was unaware they could be a problem and was not examining the plants when one day I saw a caterpillar which was 15cm long. Further examination yielded a dozen or so large caterpillars. The reason I had not noticed them earlier was because they were so well camouflaged as to make them almost invisible even when looking directly at them. In fact, the only evidence I had that they were around was that leaves had been eaten and droppings of a very specific shape were evident. If I saw droppings on a leaf, then a caterpillar was lurking above that point, hiding under another leaf. The stripes on the body correspond exactly to the stripes on the cannabis leaf, but the most incredible feature is the head and the tail, both of which have white knobs all over them which look amazingly like trichomes.
I have photos of leaves and larvae on my computer but don't know how to upload them. But these larvae are so incredibly like the cannabis flowers and leaves with trichomes that they surely have to be designed specifically for the cannabis plant, and I know of no other plant with remotely similar flowers and trichomes.
My bafflement arises from the fact that we live miles from anywhere, and cannabis is not usually grown outdoors here. Most cannabis is grown secretly indoors under artificial light, outdoors is risky because of theft. There are hardly any plants available to the moth to find. How is it possible that a moth actually found our plants in the middle of nowhere?
The scenario is this: Cannabis grown for own use is perfectly legal here, and so I grow four or five plants outside every year and we use it primarily for the pain relief from arthritis from which my wife suffers quite badly. She has learnt that if only she can get a good night's sleep, the pains are manageable, and so I try to cultivate a crop with soporific qualities in addition to pain relief. Most people are aware the the cannabis plant has very distinctive leaves and an even more distinctive flower which is surrounded by what people call sugar leaves. When at a late stage of flowering, the flowers and sugar leaves are covered in trichomes, which are tiny hair-like protuberances which contain the chemicals which cannabis growers seek.
This year we have had an infestation of Death's Head Hawk Moth larvae. I was unaware they could be a problem and was not examining the plants when one day I saw a caterpillar which was 15cm long. Further examination yielded a dozen or so large caterpillars. The reason I had not noticed them earlier was because they were so well camouflaged as to make them almost invisible even when looking directly at them. In fact, the only evidence I had that they were around was that leaves had been eaten and droppings of a very specific shape were evident. If I saw droppings on a leaf, then a caterpillar was lurking above that point, hiding under another leaf. The stripes on the body correspond exactly to the stripes on the cannabis leaf, but the most incredible feature is the head and the tail, both of which have white knobs all over them which look amazingly like trichomes.
I have photos of leaves and larvae on my computer but don't know how to upload them. But these larvae are so incredibly like the cannabis flowers and leaves with trichomes that they surely have to be designed specifically for the cannabis plant, and I know of no other plant with remotely similar flowers and trichomes.
My bafflement arises from the fact that we live miles from anywhere, and cannabis is not usually grown outdoors here. Most cannabis is grown secretly indoors under artificial light, outdoors is risky because of theft. There are hardly any plants available to the moth to find. How is it possible that a moth actually found our plants in the middle of nowhere?
