Does anyone know what animal left this?
Who did this? A robin? A woodpecker? I bet it was my little song sparrow buddy. But why? pic.twitter.com/yWozLoWzyB
— Bix (@BixWeber) June 30, 2018
Right. Well, it went a lot deeper… pic.twitter.com/IPjkqYjdbG
— Bix (@BixWeber) July 1, 2018
… and left some larvae, so, it probably wasn't a bird. pic.twitter.com/ezSSkL62NN
— Bix (@BixWeber) July 1, 2018
Eeewwwwww…. I’ve had ants get onto a similar style hose nozzle I have, but they wouldn’t be nearly as large as what you have…. And they don’t press grass in around themselves.
Would a bird “store” larvae for later eating?
We’re really drawing a blank here. Bees?
I don’t think bees, unless possibly a Queen bee larva, but they’re usually within the hive, not in a hose! I’ve been obsessing about this–was this grass etc. all inside the sprayer while it was attached to the hose? If so, and the hose were attached to the spigot, how in the world did the grass and larva get into the sprayer attachment? I can only assume you’d had the sprayer detached for some time? Laying around waiting to be colonized??!!
The sprayer was detached, yes. We had two, one attached to the hose, and this older one laying next to it as a backup.
If you look closely, you can see tiny, white, worm-like animals emerging from the brown pod. Less than 1/8 inch long, tiny!
Yes, I looked closely–the idea of something being “colonized” by other critters is pretty repulsive. My brother’s ex-mother-in-law, a Brazilian, was hanging out laundry one day in Brazil, and some insect bit her abdomen–but it actually wasn’t *just* a bite! The bug created a “nest” for its young in her abdomen, and it had to be surgically removed–about the size of a baseball!!!! AACCKK! Here’s a similar phenomenon with tomato hornworms and parasitic wasps, which eat the hornworm from the inside out!!!!!!!!!!!!!! https://mrmsellkswitt.weebly.com/their-symbiotic-relationship.html
Ugh… There is something repulsive about parasitism.
Nature is red in tooth and claw….