Interlopers on our wetland invaders!!!

by Anne Kretchsmann, Waters Specialist

We are starting to supplementally feed the purple loosestrife bio-control beetles being reared at the Discovery Center by adding additional loose stems to each netted plant. Thanks to the rain we have gotten, we haven’t had to add water to the kiddie pools to keep the plants’ roots wet, which decreases our work. The plants are beginning to die at the top which signals that our release date is near!

Today I went to check on the beetles and feed them as necessary. I thought a few plants looked particularly sparse of leaves so I took a closer look. 

Much to my surprise, there were 3-inch long White-lined Sphinx Moth caterpillars munching away INSIDE the nets! I’m puzzled as to how they got into the nets which are designed to keep predators such as spiders OUT! While it’s good to know that sphinx moth larvae enjoy eating purple loosestrife, I went about trying to coax them to come out of the nets without letting the beetles out. It was a three-ring purple loosestrife circus!

“Greater familiarity with marshes on the part of more people could give man a truer and more wholesome view of himself in relation to Nature. In marshes, Life’s undercurrents and unknowns and evolutionary changes are exemplified with a high degree of independence from human dominance as long as the marshes remain in marshy condition. Marshes compromise their own form of wilderness. They have their own life-rich genuineness and reflect forces that are much older, much more permanent, and much mightier than man.” ~Paul Errington