There is one thing that I am constantly reminded of, and that is that mother nature has a sense of humour. I am almost convinced that she indulged in her own "recreational plants" *ahem* once in a while when she was doing the inventing. The Tussock Moth caterpillar is a case in point, I can just imagine Mother Nature with her various helpers (are they elves, or dwarfs or fairies I don't know) after having imbibed some substance or another saying "ha ha ha, yeah give it two horns up front, but you know give it another one on its butt!, and make it really fuzzy, with some blobs on its back ha ha" I can then imagine her waking up the next morning with a serious headache saying "what the hell was I thinking?"

[[http://www.richard-seaman.com/Arthropods/Usa/Caterpillars/NorthernIllinois/WhiteMarkedTussockMothCaterpillar.jpg]]

The same premise applies when it comes to the Golden Tortoise Beetle. The Golden Tortoise Beetle eats morning glory plants, and their relatives (which is why my sweet potato vines look like lace doilies right now), so one would assume that they would be green, or brown, or even in a moment of madness be pink to match the flowers. But no, mother nature decided to make the little dudes Gold, and I don't mean gold as in a nice yellow, or some such thing, I mean that they actually look like tiny blobs of liquid, molten gold. It baffles me, it really does, why would they be gold? And if you don't believe me here is a photo I took today.


Now granted they spend their entire life on the underside of leaves so they don't get seen but why make them gold? Like I said, sense of humour. There are other colours of tortoise beetles, one for instance looks like a ladybug with a see-through crash helmet on, as in here



There are also black ones with the same see through crash helmet on. Mother nature has a sense of humour, I just hope we all get the joke.