When you leave the house for the day, what type of bag do you have to carry what you need? Are you a fanny pack - embracing freedom and practicality, a clutch - showing you're stream lined and minimalist with a flair for style, or maybe a briefcase - always hard at work and ready to get the deal done or your like this beautiful worm here and you carry a big ole bucket bag - ready for everything with snacks, medical supplies, tissues, hand sanitizer, a book, umbrella, and maybe a tooth brush and spare underwear in case you have to shelter in place somewhere. You name it, it's in there somewhere...hopefully you have a flashlight too so you can find what you need, when you need it.
Judgements aside about your bag preference, I love it when I find a new bug that blows my mind with how unique it is and this little beauty stopped me dead in my tracks. I found her scaling the side of our building but couldn't quite see what it was until later in the day, she was inching her way across the ground. Imagine my luck! Right there ready to be photographed. I thought the monkey slug was unique, and yes she is but, this here bagworm blew my mind.
Dragging her heavy bag everywhere she goes, she likely has wheely-bag envy as she crawls up walls, through the jungle, and up plants where she sleeps, mates, and lays her eggs all in that one beautifully woven silk-lined bag. After laying her clutch of about 700 eggs, that's the end of her life. She retreats into her beautiful bag and dies.
Her decaying body provides nutrition for the eggs which take about 4-6 months to hatch. The little female hatchlings emerge and get to work weaving their new beautiful bag out of silk they make and organic material from the tree they live and forage on so they, like their mothers before them, can safely carry the weight of the world on their shoulders.
While the females are hard at work, the males metamorphose into flying moths who have a short but exciting life as they head out looking for a female to mate with. After he finds his girl, he does his sexy deed and dies. Not a bad way to go! As the females grow, they continue to reweave their bag to accommodate their growing bodies taking about 3 months to grow to maturity.
Talking about change, after months of winter in the north, and your body being covered all the time by warm clothing, there's a reason images like this are so impactful. Knowing how important vitamin D is to our bodies, the idea of baring your skin to the warm sun in a tropical place midway through the winter is absolutely natural and absolutely necessary too. Heck, you might even get a doctor to write you a prescription for travel to Morrillo! In January, our temperatures here are around 80-90ºF (26º-32ºC) and sunny every day so you can slide into your bathing suit, soak up the warmth and vitamin D, get your summer tan back and experience all our adventures too. Sound perfect? That's because it totally is.
Your Friends in Morrillo,
Cari and Ryan Mackey
Owners and Hosts
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