Sanctuary | Commentary
WHAT A WONDERFUL WORLD!
How stunning is this? One of Mumbai’s inveterate naturalists,
Yogesh Chavan, found 42 (count them!) exquisitely arranged
salmon Arab butterfl y caterpillars on a single meswak leaf
at the Bhandup Pumping Station next to Mumbai’s Sanjay
Gandhi National Park.
The collective caterpillar display has everything to do with
survival. Function is central to the body design and behaviour
of all living creatures. Butterfl ies almost invariably lay their
eggs on specifi c ‘host plants’ so the larvae that emerge from
the eggs are able to fulfi l their singular purpose in life...
to eat!
The fi rst meal tends to be the eggshell... then the leaf on
which the egg was carefully laid. Caterpillars could consume
25,000 times their original body weight, moulting several
times before metamorphosing into the next stage of their life
cycle. I have edited Sanctuary for 38 years now, but am still
frustrated by how little I know. Did you know that caterpillars
possess as many as 4,000 muscles? You have just 629 and
they have 248 muscles in their head capsules alone!
Though they can’t see very well at all, they actually have
six times as many eyes as you do. And no, they do not have
a large number of legs. They are insects and have just six.
Their other appendages that look like legs are ‘prolegs’ that
help them hold on to plants for dear life! When they turn
into butterfl ies, all but the six legs attached to their thoracic
segments will drop off.
With no weapons to defend themselves, these soft-bodied
creatures pack impressive arsenal to ward off predators.
Some steal poisons from host plants to deter birds and other
insects and, you better believe it, some adjust their blood
pressure to assist in locomotion.
How does all this magic happen? Your guess is as good
as mine. But this I know... Dr. Richard Dawkins got it right
when he said: “The truth is more magical – in the best and
most exciting sense of the word – than any myth or made-up
mystery or miracle. Science has its own magic: the magic
of reality.”
The next time you visit a distant wilderness, remember
the wild exists right next to you, in your home, in your
gardens... even in your gut!
As Louis Armstrong exclaimed... long before Dawkins:
“What a wonderful world!”