CSI Staten Island

It has been a busy month with lots of exciting events, but our most recent adventure was the funniest in a while, so I'm starting there. The nights have been growing colder, so I've brought in my herb garden. While watering a couple of nights ago, I noticed that one of my basil plants had been completely skeletonized. I immediately contacted Detective Penny so she could help me locate the culprit and save the remainder of our plants before they were all gone.

Penny donned my headlamp to get a closer view of the evidence. She found more than one plant had been victimized. There were also a number of other interesting clues.

 Frass: On the table beneath the nibbled leaves was a scattering of small black pellets. Apparently, our herbivore was not potty trained. He had made his way along a pretty long section of plant based on the digested material left behind.

 Exoskeletons: There were a series of white shed skins on the undersides of several leaves. There appeared to be several different sizes. Each seemed to  have a nice pair of jumping legs, though it was hard to identify them to species.

Penny went to the dinner table with her notebook and drew some great pictures of our evidence, took down some key notes, and began formulating her hypothesis about our intruder. After extensive deliberation, Detective Penny concluded that we must be looking for a caterpillar. I tried to convince her it should be something more like a grasshopper or leafhopper or something, but she wouldn't buy it. She got the headlamp back on and started the search for our elusive herbivore. We were unsuccessful in our hunt, though.

Thankfully, Daddy was on the job and spotted something suspicious when he woke up the next morning. There in the curtains adjacent to the plants was a chubby little caterpillar ensconced in a silken protective sleeve. We're not quite sure what the best thing to do would be. For now, the little bugger doesn't appear to be going anywhere, so his sentence is on hold. Hopefully he doesn't have any friends lurking about still.