Bedstraw hawkmoth caterpillar
While walking around a stretch of Emerald Lake in Yoho National Park, British Columbia, on September 7th, we encountered a handsome caterpillar on a fireweed plant (Chamaenerion or Chamerion or Epilobium angustifolium). A member of bugguide.net identified, and another at Butterflies and Moths of North America later confirmed, my subject as the larva of Hyles gallii, a type of Sphinx moth known as a bedstraw hawkmoth.
A few of you may remember the forlorn Hyles lineata moth that appeared here in 2012.
© 2017 Steven Schwartzman
Portraits of Wildflowers 
Very handsome. Does ‘handsome is as handsome does’ apply if we take into account that the larva will turn into a handsome, useful moth?
Gallivanta
October 6, 2017 at 6:18 AM
Speaking of handsome, we could say that the moth is a kind of hand-me-down of the caterpillar. Now you’ve got me wondering about the shift in meaning of handsome, which must originally have had to do with hands. I just looked it up and found that the original senses were ‘dexterous; skillful; handy; ready; convenient.’ One example of early usage: “That they [engines of war] be both easy to be carried and handsome to be moved and turned about.” Something handy and useful then came to be conceived as admirable, appealing. The dictionary entry at
http://www.webster-dictionary.org/definition/handsome
includes the proverb you quoted.
Steve Schwartzman
October 6, 2017 at 6:48 AM
Certainly a word which we don’t use according to its originally senses. Handy, useful, and appealing reminds me of the William Morris quote,”Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful.” He could have shortened it to, “Only have handsome things in your house.”
Gallivanta
October 6, 2017 at 8:12 AM
I’ve got to hand it to you: you’ve done a handy job packing two things into one.
Steve Schwartzman
October 6, 2017 at 8:16 AM
I like to keep things orderly and handsome.
Gallivanta
October 7, 2017 at 5:55 PM
Best of all, no one needs to order you to do it.
Steve Schwartzman
October 7, 2017 at 9:03 PM
Ha! True.
Gallivanta
October 8, 2017 at 12:05 AM
Welcome back to the world of comments.
Steve Schwartzman
October 8, 2017 at 6:23 AM
Thank you. At least I can comment on your blog.
Gallivanta
October 8, 2017 at 8:04 AM
And, until I am fully returned to the WordPress commenting fold, my daughter has found a way for me to comment, using an incognito window.
Gallivanta
October 8, 2017 at 8:24 AM
Great designer coat for this little critter! 🙂
Indira
October 6, 2017 at 6:44 AM
Good for you for that clever image of a ‘designer coat.’
Steve Schwartzman
October 6, 2017 at 6:49 AM
As soon as I read “forlorn,” I remembered the story of that particular moth. One of the hardest lessons I’ve had to learn is that nature’s ways aren’t always our ways. My first impulse is to rescue everything in sight, but sometimes rescue is helpful, and sometimes it’s just an excess of sentimentality.
The color of this caterpillar seemed unusual to me. I wondered if it got its name from the straw-like color. What I found is that it feeds on a plant called Galium verum, or “lady’s bedstraw,” and that the plant once was used to stuff mattresses, just as Spanish moss was used in the American South: bed-straw.
shoreacres
October 6, 2017 at 7:33 AM
You have an excellent memory for such stories. For me, that encounter is still so current I have trouble believing it took place five years ago. Tempus fugit, and all that (or as a friend of mine likes to say: tempus fidgets).
Thanks for researching the bedstraw connection. Now the etymologist in me can sleep well.
Steve Schwartzman
October 6, 2017 at 7:54 AM
Stunning photo, Steve. A very cool caterpillar.
Jet Eliot
October 6, 2017 at 9:57 AM
That horn on its head is just the right touch.
Steve Schwartzman
October 6, 2017 at 9:58 AM
After my reply to you I noticed that the next comment, which is time-stamped 9:57 too, also describes this as cool. Like minds, and all that.
Steve Schwartzman
October 6, 2017 at 10:03 AM
Cool. I use bugguide too. Terrific folks man it.
Sherry Felix
October 6, 2017 at 9:57 AM
Both you and the previous person, who also coincidentally commented at 9:57 (my time), described this as cool.
I’m grateful to the bugguide folks for having identified a bunch of things that I submitted over the past few years.
Steve Schwartzman
October 6, 2017 at 10:02 AM
You’d expect to find this one smoking a hookah and talking to Alice.
MichaelStephenWills
October 6, 2017 at 11:57 AM
Don’t know about the hookah and Alice, but Steve was hooked and had no choice but to take pictures.
Steve Schwartzman
October 6, 2017 at 1:24 PM
I had the same image in mind, the caterpillar smoking the hookah in the book “Alice in Wonderland” by Lewis Carroll. Great photo, Steve!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alice_(Alice%27s_Adventures_in_Wonderland)
Lavinia Ross
October 9, 2017 at 2:04 PM
Thanks, Lavinia. I, too, remember the hookah-smoking caterpillar from childhood, though it didn’t cross my mind when I took this picture. Did you know that Lewis Carroll (Charles Lutwidge Dodgson) was an early aficionado of photography?
Steve Schwartzman
October 9, 2017 at 2:14 PM
No, I did not.
Lavinia Ross
October 12, 2017 at 10:04 AM
The University of Texas here in Austin has some of his photographs:
http://hrc.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/landingpage/collection/p15878coll18#nav_top
He photographed Alice Liddell, the model for the fictional Alice.
Steve Schwartzman
October 12, 2017 at 1:05 PM
Thank you, Steve!
Lavinia Ross
October 26, 2017 at 11:11 AM
You’re welcome. The University of Texas here in Austin also has the earliest known surviving photograph made in a camera:
http://www.hrc.utexas.edu/exhibitions/permanent/firstphotograph/
Steve Schwartzman
October 26, 2017 at 11:29 AM
This blog earned a Bean Pat as blog pick of the day. Check it out at http://patbean.wordpress.com
Pat Bean
October 6, 2017 at 1:28 PM
Thanks again, Pat. We can all use a pat on the back at times.
Steve Schwartzman
October 9, 2017 at 2:29 PM
As caterpillars go – that one is pretty
norasphotos4u
October 9, 2017 at 6:25 PM
I hope the other ones don’t feel slighted.
Steve Schwartzman
October 9, 2017 at 7:01 PM
[…] or Chamerion or Epilobium angustifolium). This is the second appearance recently of fireweed in a supporting role with an animal; the prolific plant will eventually appear in its own right. In the meantime, if you want a much […]
From Columbia to Columbian | Portraits of Wildflowers
October 13, 2017 at 4:39 AM
That is some handsome caterpillar … with a penchant for purple 😀
Julie@frogpondfarm
October 14, 2017 at 9:34 PM
With “penchant for purple” you’ve demonstrated a penchant for alliteration. That’s always welcome here.
Steve Schwartzman
October 14, 2017 at 10:13 PM
Oh so I have 😃
Julie@frogpondfarm
October 15, 2017 at 1:25 AM
[…] name would have flowers that look as good—assuming you’re close enough. After one view of wilted flowers and another of fresh ones from a bit of a distance, you’re finally getting a proper look at […]
Bumblebee on fireweed flowers | Portraits of Wildflowers
October 20, 2017 at 4:35 AM
[…] and animals. In one case it was with a bumblebee, in another with a ground squirrel, and the third with a caterpillar. What impressed me about the plant in its own right was its seeds. The reddish seed pods are long […]
What I didn’t know about fireweed | Portraits of Wildflowers
January 24, 2018 at 4:54 AM