Eliza Chewlittle chews a lot. Like, a lot a lot, but you’d have to keep a beady eye on her mandibles to actually notice how she scissors voraciously through her banquet of leafy plant matter.
Despite her rather insignificant girth, Eliza was a creature of substantial ambition and took much pride in her velveteen brown coat. Her most striking feature – she would surely agree if she could speak – was her curious and iridescent eyespots.
These decorated her svelte shoulders, and she flaunted them in the way of a Kabuki theatre star as she trundled through the damp leaf litter of Harkerville’s woodlands. Her glamorous kumadori-style make-up suited her flashy looks and was fittingly finished off by an elaborate curved spike rising up from her rump.
A peckish Knysna Turaco would have viewed Eliza as a rather tasty morsel, but Ms Chewlittle regarded herself as a mighty, trunk-blessed behemoth. And she carried herself thusly as she navigated the mighty jungle of ferns and fungi.
This was no easy feat on her stubby proto-legs (sixteen in total, including the grippy ones at the rear). Nonetheless she bustled onwards, summiting the mighty and mossy flanks of fallen hardwood giants. “Halleria elliptica”, she puffed to herself, her mandibles twitching with purpose.
Morning forest dew clung to her skin like liquid gemstones, but Eliza had no time for finery. She was on a quest for said Halleria elliptica, the bush honeysuckle, and her divine and delectable Holy Grail. These woods were not easy to navigate, though, with a labyrinth of gargantuan trees dwarfing Eliza’s world.
Unexpected vibrations shuddered through the leaf litter like impending earthquakes now and then, and threats loomed all round. Eliza froze as a shadow materialised, not twitching, not moving. Ahead, amidst the tattered bark shards of a long-dead blackwood, a huntsman spider blocked her path.
The predatory arachnid raised its pedipalps, using tiny trichobothria hairs to scan its immediate surrounds for movement. These minute filaments detect air currents, allowing them to sense prey without touching. Eliza did not panic, and instead performed her finest party trick…
She tucked her head back, and expanded her thoracic segments until those hypnotic eyespots bulged and shimmered. Slowly she began to sway rhythmically, mimicking a tiny and rather pissed-off cobra. The spider, convinced it was facing a smackdown, retreated into its dappled shadow world.
“Victory”, Eliza muttered jubilantly, and continued on her quest. Finally, she shuffled into a clearing, with sunlight shafting through the canopy to illuminate a cluster of orange-pink flowers. Their aroma was floral and sweetly intoxicating, luring her forward at a blistering maximum speed of 10cm per minute.
Slowly she extended her pachyderm-like trunk to savour the succulent flower, and succumbed to a tentative nibble. The world may well be a vast and terrifying place, but right now, life for Eliza had become a feast …
FOR THE NERDS: While Eliza’s journey was a fantastical fabrication, the biology of the Elephant Hawk Moth (Deilephila elpenor) is no less wondrous. Although these invertebrates are primarily a Palearctic species, its relatives in the Sphingidae family are found across southern Africa.
The moths are sometimes mistaken for hummingbirds due to their hovering flight and relatively large size. Caterpillars employ biomimicry when threatened, retracting their head and inflating the eyespot segments to resemble a small snake, thus deterring potential predators.
The ‘elephant’ reference becomes obvious once you encounter the caterpillar. Their snout-like anterior segments can extend or retract at will, assisting in movement and feeding behaviour. When they pupate, the caterpillars metamorphose inside a fragile cocoon on the soil surface, emerging as stunning olive-green and hot-pink moths. I look forward to seeing one.
NOTE: Thank you to Andrew Schild for his comment in the ‘Bugs & Butterflies’ Group – “It’s not, no. The Elephant Hawkmoth (Deilephila elpenor) is a palearctic species. This is the caterpillar of a Hippotion sp. of Hawkmoth (Sphingidae) and, from what I can see, it looks like that of a Common Striped Hawkmoth (H. eson)”.
