Fish Bait gets his own post because he spans days. Plus, he’s pretty cool.

I was coming back from the Post Office on 11 July when I noticed a big, fat caterpillar strolling across the sidewalk. I recognized it right away as one of the big sphinxes, but wasn’t sure which one. I brought him in the office, and quickly looked him up. White-lined Sphinx–woo-hoo! He most desperately wanted to find a place to pupate, and he was very active in his attempts to get out of the Office Bug-Catching Cup, but I had to keep him in there until I could go get him some stuff at lunch. The ground was hard, and there’s no good, soft soil around, so I bought a bag of cheap potting soil. Cheap because that means they haven’t spent any extra money to add fertilizers or pesticides or anything like that; it’s just potting soil. I also got a big food storage container to put it in. Dampened the soil with bottled water because our water has enough chlorine to kill an elephant, let alone a caterpillar, and dropped him in. This image shows his head buried because I didn’t have time to reach for my phone between the moment I dropped him onto the soil and the moment he started to dig in (nanoseconds!) I was showing him to the guy who owns the business next door, and he said, “Looks like fish bait”, which is kind of true, since Catalpa Sphinx cats are frequently used as fish bait, and there is a resemblance because they’re sort of cousins to the White-Lined Sphinx. So…Fish Bait he became.

I took him home with me after work, and set his container on the table outside the door, out of direct sun. I had to keep it covered because of raccoons (which actually did get into it once when the cover wasn’t on all the way, but they didn’t find him), but every few times I’d go by, I’d take off the cover and let some fresh air in. I made sure it stayed barely damp, and just left him alone. Okay, so the second day, I did carefully move soil away, but he startled me when his pupa jumped, so after that, I left him alone.

When I came home on 02 Aug, there was someone waiting for me. He’d just eclosed; his wings weren’t droopy, but they weren’t hardened enough for him to really fly.

I couldn’t leave him there (well, could have, but didn’t want to in case he was still there at dusk when curious baby raccoons overrun the patio), and I wanted a picture of him on my hand to show his size.

I put him over on some surprise lilies; I have these guys at my house and know they love those lilies, so I wanted him to be very near a nectar source that he likes when he was ready to fly. Over there, he’d also be away from the large birds because that’s hummingbird and goldisox turf.

I checked as the sun was going down, and he hadn’t gone yet, but I’m sure that shortly afterward, once it was truly dusk, he took off. Perhaps he drank some surprise lily nectar to fuel his flight. I don’t know. Good luck, Fish Bait–I hope nothing eats you!