Case of the Mysterious Insect

 

On the morning of December 24^th I saw something in the backyard that looked like the biggest Stick Insect ever. It was on top of some containers that stood in a bucket of water. My first impression was: there's a Stick Insect drinking. But on looking closer, I thought: maybe it isn’t a stick insect. It had the general shape of one: an elongated midsection topped by a roundish ‘head’, and a trailing ‘tail’ or ‘legs’. But I wasn’t sure. It looked more like actual wood (not fauna mimicking flora) -- with no apparent eyes, nor proper legs. I touched it slightly and it did seem to move, kind of freaking me out. Wanting a second opinion I went and called to my partner to have a look.

My partner thought the same as me, a stick insect-but not a stick insect. He touched it gently and it didn’t seem to move. I then picked it up and examined it. While it wasn’t exactly an insect, it wasn’t a pure stick either. Its ‘body’ was made of tiny twigs almost like pine needles, sort of cemented together with a kind of mud. The ‘head’ was of fluffy, woolly material. Something had ‘constructed’ this thing. Did it come from a bird’s nest? I left it on the table and went out.

I walked along Hawthorne Canal looking for wrens and Willie Wagtails (saw some). Was also pleased to see a lot of butterflies, several kinds. Vibrant blue ones with black edges, and a huge, mostly-black one that flew fast and could be mistaken for a bird flying past; some had orange-with-black lined wings, reminding me of Monarch butterflies. I was happy that Insect Armageddon, which people talked about last year, was maybe slowing this year, with our increased rain possibly restoring some habitat.

Recently I’d seen four different types of dragonfly at Whites Creek wetland. Smallish dragonflies with pale blue bodies; a bright, chili-red bodied one; ones that were dull brown except their ‘faces’/ front of their heads which were electric turquoise; and lastly, big, double-sized brownish-gold dragonflies.

It’s also been a bumper year for crickets and cicadas, lots of people in various neighbourhoods and places have remarked. To me the cicadas sound like they’re all playing the banjo, except for the ones that are playing kazoos – cacophony but the vibrations can really fill your head and heart like ‘Om’.

When I got home from the butterfly walk, I went to check on the mystery ‘stick’. I’d begun thinking it might be a butterfly chrysalis and I should put it into the garden or in a tree, from where it had maybe blown down. I looked at the table, but the stick was gone – where now? It was vertically perched on the wall, with a kind of caterpillar sticking out the ‘head’ end. Wow. And it was climbing up.

I studied it for a while. The caterpillar was a dark orange colour with black rings. Its little head was moving around, and I could see three pairs of legs. This caterpillar-front was pulling the back, stick section, along. It seemed to be climbing the wall, but wasn’t making much progress. I started to worry about it. The moving head and mouth seemed like they were demonstrating hunger. After a while I gently tried to move it, thinking I could put it in a tree, where I thought it would be happier and could eat. But it wouldn’t come off the wall! Its little hands/legs seemed to be kind of stuck to the wall.

I took some pictures then went inside to get a ruler to show some scale, and to see how big it was. When I came back it had vanished completely.

I googled a description of it and found it’s called a Case Moth or Saunders Moth. It is a creature that carries its ‘mobile home’ with it. I read that the female, which can live for two years, doesn’t leave the case, and only the male grows wings. The creatures spin a sort of ‘silk’ which explained the woolly-looking top of the case. The caterpillars can go back inside the case if they feel they need to, and can re-close the opening. The sticky silk they can make was probably how its legs were sticking to the wall. Case moths are around 15 cm long. Even though I hadn’t been able to put a ruler next to it, me and my partner estimated the one we saw was 15 cm exactly (approx. 6 inches).

The short amount of information I found didn’t really explain it for me. It was the weirdest, most prehistoric looking insect I’ve ever seen. I never saw one before and doubt I’ll see one again. When it left I felt like it could have easily vanished into outer space, or returned to 3000 years in the past where it came from.

Some people tell a story that on Christmas Eve, animals can talk. On this day it seemed true, but I couldn't be sure what the creature was saying.