Re: Unusual aquatic catepillars(?)

[Dennis Chua <dennis_chua at excite_com>]

Marshall Wilkinson wrote:
...Then I noticed a little worm encased in some leaf litter inching it's way
along the front glass. I plucked him out and offer these
observations. It was about 1/4" long with legs on the anterior end and furry
or spikey. It looked like a small catepillar...

my response:
I have also experienced this not too long ago in my 25 gal tank. At first I
was puzzled by the premature shedding of the vallisneria leaves : they were
all torn off at the middle and appeared as green healthy leaves. At last I
spotted something moving within two pieces of val leaves form liked a case
and was shock to see the catepillar. 
They feasted on the Vallisneria and left most other plants intact. I caught
a total of about a dorzen and fed them to the barbs. They must had hatched
out from some cluster of egg as they happened to all appear within a short
time. Their rate of destruction were very fast ! Within days the val were
shorten  and it took more than two months for the val to recover.
I did not keep any for later observation. Let me know if you found some
interesting morp gow out of it.





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