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Drinker caterpillar.

 

 

Thaw and rain have worked powerfully to melt the snow. Now is the right time to visit places where drinker moth caterpillars were seen in the winter creeping on the snow. We can see 3-4 cm deep hollows and holes of roughly the same width on the snow. Peering into a hole, there is our familiar caterpillar on the bottom. Usually it is still motionless, but the snow soon melts even more and the caterpillar will abandon its ”winter cocoon”.

The greater part of the caterpillars that I found in the Kärkna forests were still quietly lying in their holes. I met only one that crawled slowly  on the snow. It had probably by chance been left under a somewhat thinner snow layer. When its surrounding snow melted completely it was probably forced to move  before its regular time.