August 28, 2006

"I have no idea why they like bikes so much. Perhaps the structure reminds them of a tree with thin branches? I don't know."

Larverna! The caterpillars! In Sweden. Scroll through the pictures. Very dramatic and disturbing... but artistic.

8 comments:

Robert said...

Imagine being a bird who eats caterpillars. It would be like walking down the street and having food raining on you. Like being Marlon Brando walking through the market in the Godfather.

JorgXMcKie said...

OT, I know, but starting late yesterday my Firefox is working at this site again.

Did you change anything? I didn't, but I have the update automatically feature set for my Firefox.

Ann Althouse said...

Yes, I put some code in that was suggested in the comments to that post where I asked for help the other day. It hasn't worked for me though. I'm glad it's helping some people.

amba said...

AGH!! That's a horror movie.

Tibore said...

Yeeeuuuucch! Cannot stand bugs. Even though they're an entirely different species - and genus, likely - the sheer numbers talked about in the article brought back uncomfortable memories of the Brood X Cicada outbreak here in Indiana.

I've never seen a bigger, uglier, stupid'er bug. And the noise... a friend was moving, and told me that along stretches of the interstate, he could hear the cicadas above the noise of the big moving truck's diesel engine. At highway speeds.

Yeah, Amba, that was a frikkin' horror movie too.

Robert: The article said " Surprisingly, I never saw birds eating the caterpillars". so for some odd reason, caterpillar-loving birds didn't seem to be out in force in the area. Either that, or they'd all eaten their fill, since there were so many around.

Anonymous said...

Yech! Kind of makes me appreciate the tent caterpillars in the back yard. Won't gripe about them again! Good to know Europe has at least one creature more disgusting than we do.

barbie2be said...

ok, that's.... that's just wrong!

pst314 said...

Just to be silly: One stage in the life cycle of the Swedish bicycle. But what does it look like when it emerges from its cocoon?