Pets I can do without.

In his blue gardens, men and girls came and went like moths among the whisperings and the champagne and the stars.  ~ FrancisScott Key Fitzgerald



In a land notorious for unpleasant inhabitants of the deadlier kind not even the common catapillar is innocous.  True, at one time in our married life my kitchen was regularly swarming with blue ring octupi & we have quite a collection of the deadlier snakes as well  but catapillars?  They grow into moths & butterflies & are generally harmless, yes?

No.  Not round here at any rate.  Just the other day Star got a nasty sting from the common Blue Triangle [or at least from the caterpillar that morphs into this rather pretty butterfly].  They are so pretty we tolerate the caterpillars, which are just plain nasty.

However the hairy monster on the right doesn't morph into anything pretty at all. Anthela canescens is notorious in Brissie [as well as various other parts of Oz] for the vicious spiny hairs that cause an itchy rash if inadvertently touched.  Trust me.  With children that collected anything that moved as their latest *pet* we have dealt with more of these rashes than I ever hoped to see.  Some summers see a plague of these things meandering across the roads & down driveways in long, long crocodile lines.  Some years we never see them at all.  These are the caterpillars responsible for the hairy cocoons that also give you a nasty surprise!

At one time the sight of one of these huge hairy monsters would be the cue for my house to go into overdrive finding an unused shoe box, fresh gum leaves, a convienient twig, in the hopes of a bird's eye view of the cocoon & eventual moth.  Thankfully my boys survived their growing years & have outgrown their need to bring creepy~crawlies into my house & Star is not into things that give a nastier bite than she does!

Just the same Dino takes the cake for the scariest pet.  He arrived home one day carrying a dented coke can which he informed me contained his newest pet.  Closer investigation revealed he had obtained [no doubt with considerable encouragement] a small eyed snake.  No, he was not allowed to keep it.  I gingerly place the tin somewhere my incautious son would be unlikely to find it & if the snake had the sense it was born with it vacated the premises promptly.