what is hiding in our leaves...2 (Opening up the leaves) Experiment 4

(All photographs copyrighted and the property of Joy Murray, not to be used without permission)

Last night just before Jessica (my adult daughter) and I went to bed, we couldn't resist opening up another leaf to see what was inside - yes, there were two worms ( not spiders :-)); so our hypothesis was correct, LOL! The interesting things were that one worm seemed to be getting ready to make a cocoon, and when we woke up this morning the leaf was closed tightly shut with silk threads again!

Okay so finally we get that two worm usually live wrapped in our leaves....
(1) they do not seem to eat anything there.
(2) they seem to have a toilet at one end of the leaf.
(3) Actually they are not worms, they are caterpillars as they have legs See http://www.allaboutworms.com/do-caterpillars-and-worms-eat-the-same-things
(4) we figured out there is actually only one leaf that they curl up and use.
(5) The leaf is usually still green and growing on the tree.
(6) it is usually only the toilet end that goes brown


Okay so we may be re-inventing the wheel here, I am sure there must be some information out there that I have not found yet. But I still cannot help being totally fascinated by our awesomely interesting creature who has made such a marvelous little creatures! I am just totally blown away!