I'll start with a kale leaf, and my surprise at finding two little flyers hanging out with–wait are those eggs, their offspring, or are they eating the little aphid-looking white guys? What was surprising is that neither of these insects flew away during the kale harvesting or the photo shoot (which was complicated, because they were so very tiny and I was a little bit excited).
Anybody out there know what kind of bug I've got living on my kale?
Anybody out there know what kind of bug I've got living on my kale?
 | Then, on several other kale leaves, I noticed a parade of holes had been chewed, and well... looking closer saw several tiny green caterpillars. This one was the largest of the bunch. Hmmm, who could this be? No surprise here, I've been watching the White Cabbage butterflies flirt and mate all summer, and they seem to love brassicas. This was the largest of the instars, and I believe it to be a L3 @ 7mm, based on my ID using the "Life Histories of Cascadia Butterflies" by David James and David Nunnallee. Honestly, the Cabbage White is NOT my favorite butterfly, and I'm not that thrilled that it is savaging my kale, but-what is exciting is that I now understand that some caterpillars are really teeny, and that if you want to have butterflies, you certainly need to provide host plants for their immature stages. |
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