Dear esteemed fellow nature enthusiasts,

Last Thursday, as I was running on two hours of sleep due to a poorly timed #sunrike, I managed to spot-RIGHT after we discussed these critters in class, what a coincidence-a colony of tent worms basking in the glory of Green Key in the blossoming trees near my residential hall.

They were just as scary as I remembered them from my days of youth when I would accidentally stumble upon one of their nests during a game of hide and seek: their beady eyes stared at me, and I ran away before snapping a photo to document that I had seen them.

Tonight, I returned to face my fear: at 6:53 pm EST, I scrambled up the hillside near Burke Chemistry building and frantically took two photos before cringing in fear and rushing off to my Movement Against Violence meeting (join in the fall! we welcome new members!).

After cowardly retreating, I conducted some brief research on the tent worms and it turns out that they are in fact caterpillars (soon-to-be-moths) that use the tent as a home base for their expeditions to forage for food until they are ready and available to transition into their final cycle of life (mothdom, a word I just made up for the state of being a moth) before ultimately dying. They are able to leave the tent itself through small holes at the branch junctures. The most interesting thing about these silk-tent-dwelling caterpillars is that they leave a chemical trail when they leave their nest in order to allow themselves to find their way back to their home. After eight weeks, the caterpillars develop into moths, who only serve to repeat this cycle of terror.

As a side note, conducting this very preliminary research caused my skin to crawl due to the sheer number of terrifying photos available of the tent caterpillar. If one of our faithful readers chooses to conduct more research into this species (which I believe is the Eastern tent caterpillar), please exercise caution. I’m warning you, these caterpillars are scary on film.

Once again, this PSA was brought to you by AYP.

Source:

T.Fitzgerald. “Eastern Tent Caterpillar.” Eastern Tent Caterpillar. University of Cortland, n.d. Web. 23 May 2017. <http://facultyweb.cortland.edu/fitzgerald/Easterntent.htm>.

Attention esteemed fellow nature enthusiasts:

As I was traipsing through our beloved BEMA, I came across the presence of an egregious amount of what appeared to be single leaves sprouting from the earth. Their leaves were rounded with clean, vertical striations, and some had small flower buds consisting of small, vertically oriented bulbs, not unlike hyacinths. They were growing nearly everywhere on the hillside where I was, and had at most two semi-curved leaves reaching for the sky.

I was dazed, confused, and simply surrounded. Due to the sheer number of these plants, I hypothesized that they grew like mint plants do, with a complex root system that attaches multiple plants together, allowing new plants to easily sprout. However, with the assistance of more intrusive investigative methods, I was wrong. After uprooting one of the plants, I discovered that the root system was at least three times as long as the plant itself, but had no other plants sprouting from it. Rather, the pale roots had many junctures with short offshoots, presumably to increase its stability or water/nutrient intake. The thin, spindly, selfish roots were seemingly never-ending. Since they were growing in acidic soil due to the presence of decomposing pine needles, I believe the use of such a complex root system serves to allow the plant to obtain additional nutrients far underground from where it sprouts.

Of course, I, like any aspiring botanist, still had not identified the plant that seemed to have invaded the park and wanted to determine its species. After consulting field guides (with the help of our professor), it was revealed to be a wild lily-of-the-valley, a highly poisonous flowering plant found in many gardens and bouquets alike.

So, when wandering through the woods (or through your backyard, kitchen, or local florist establishment) and in need of a snack, do not turn to these mysterious leaves.

This Public Safety Announcement was brought to you by Anne.