A Caterpillar
in the Wadi
An unusual caterpillar found among the mixed vegetation of a traditional Konkan wadi at Kelshi.
It was the colours that first made us stop.
On 18 March 2007, my brother Amol and I were walking through my father-in-law’s wadi at Kelshi when we noticed an unusual caterpillar resting on a leaf.
Its dark body carried broad cream markings, bright reddish projections and long black spines. Neither of us knew what it was, but it looked unlike the caterpillars we were familiar with.
We had a small digital camera with us and made a few photographs. There was no planned documentation that morning. We photographed it simply because it had caught our attention.
The setting was a traditional Konkan wadi—a family homestead surrounded by mixed vegetation. Coconut, arecanut, mango, jackfruit and other useful trees grew together, with climbers and smaller plants occupying the spaces between them.
I also remember a black pepper vine climbing one of the trees near where we found the caterpillar. The supporting tree may have been what we locally called tamalpatra, although I cannot now identify it with certainty.
We later sent one of the photographs to the Marathi newspaper Sakal, where it was published.
The caterpillar was subsequently identified as a Common Mime, Papilio clytia, a swallowtail butterfly. Its later larval stages can have the bold pale markings, reddish projections and prominent dark spines visible in the photograph.
Common Mime caterpillars are associated mainly with plants of the laurel family, Lauraceae. We had not recorded the actual host plant, so the photograph cannot tell us which plant this individual had been using.
Looking at this photograph nearly two decades later, what strikes me is how differently I would record the same observation today.
At the time, our attention was entirely on the caterpillar. We did not photograph the complete plant or the wider setting, details that could have helped establish its association with the plant more confidently.
Today, I would make the close photograph, but also step back to record the plant and surrounding habitat. The photograph from 2007 remains a simple record of what caught our attention that morning; it also shows how the way I document a field observation has changed over the years.
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