Tuesday, January 22, 2013

The thin green line

In addition to nutritionally supporting many caterpillars, the oleander tree was also physically supporting several vines.  One of these vines was about to bloom when I first arrived in Florida, and whenever I checked on the caterpillars I would also check on the buds.  I did not have to wait long before the first bud opened, revealing a very distinctive inflorescence.

An aroid vine (Araceae) with an open inflorescence and several buds.
I was less successful in discovering what was inside a strange object underneath one of the vine leaves.  It appeared to be a cocoon and although most of its silk was yellow, there was a dark green line going down the middle.

The mysterious yellow cocoon (?) with a green line across the middle.
The green line puzzled me -- it made the cocoon more obvious, yet it did not look like the warning signal of something dangerous or distasteful.  I hoped to find answers online, but I could not even find a picture or description resembling the cocoon.  I began to wonder if this cocoon just happened to have been woven in a peculiar way, until I found a second and then a third cocoon with the same green line.  Therefore, it now seems highly unlikely that the green line is just a random pattern; however, why there is a green line and what is behind it remain mysteries.

2 comments:

  1. It's a spinyback orbweaver spider nest.

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    1. Yes, thank you. The identity of the "cocoon" was actually the topic of a couple of later posts: http://naturalcurrentevents.blogspot.com/2013/02/tracing-thin-green-line.html and http://naturalcurrentevents.blogspot.com/2013/03/and-surprise-welcome-present.html

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