Rufiji camp: Caterpillars

 

I've written about the Rufiji camp before and mentioned the extensive wildlife but I had never in my life experienced such a huge volume of caterpillars in one place as I did in Rufiji this past week. There were two particular species that were present for about a week and I was stunned by their ability to congregate and have "processions", a phenomena where a long, winding line of caterpillars moves single file, head to tail, forming a slow, synchronized procession. Each larva follows the one ahead with remarkable precision, at first appearing to be a snake but on closer view showed them to be in perfect unison. 

Throughout the week we saw these caterpillars all over camp, including the bandas, trees, and paths throughout camp. They were especially active at night while it was more common to see them in the mornings in tight clusters, from a distance it would appear the trees had grown fur! 

Although visually stunning, it was unfortunately an anxiety inducing period due to their itchy and irritating hairs. While they would not leave a trail of them behind, they would release them if irritated or disturbed and there were so many caterpillars that the threat of stepping on one was always very real. I had one in my shoes in the morning and they were seriously everywhere. 

It was really fascinating to observe and the most surprising thing to me is how many consecutive days this went on for. I understood that caterpillars have limited energy and most of that would surely be used for making a cocoon and metamorphosis. We actually saw this go on for four days and we left on the fifth, unfortunately not seeing the mass of cocoons that were bound to be woven.