Dr Abe V Rotor
Living with Nature - School on Blog
Shot holes caused by bagworm (Cryotothelea heckmeyeri) besiege a talisay tree (Terminalia catappa), Cebu City
Pagoda bagworm, Crypothelea hekmeyeri Heyl., in pseudo colony
on duhat leaf; below, enlarged side view of the pagoda-shaped insect.
Sheepishly she peeps from under a pagoda she built;
Like the turtle she hides, creeps ‘til finally ceases to eat.
A Venus de Milo she emerges, sans wings she must wait,
Love scent in the air she urges a winged groom her mate.
She lays her eggs in the tent, broods them ‘til they hatch,
With heart’s content; leaves and dies after the dispatch.
To the Great Maker, life’s full of sacrifice and obligation;
Mother keeps young and home, the species’ bastion.
- AV Rotor, Bagworm
Light in the Woods, 1995
My pastime reading under a spreading duhat tree standing at the backyard of our old house was disturbed one summer. This favorite shady spot almost disappeared as the tree my father planted before I was born completely shed its leaves. Our yard turned into a litter of leaves. Our tree appeared lifeless.
Summer is when this tree is a deep green canopy, loaded with flowers and luscious, sweet fruits, and laughing children, their tongues and hands bearing the stain of its black berries.
The culprit cannot be the drought spurred by El Nino, I thought. Duhat is highly tolerant to prolonged dry spell, because its tap roots can reach deep seated ground water.
Even before I discovered the culprit - a shy insect protected by a pagoda-like bag - my children had already set up a field laboratory in their a tent, complete with basic research tools, and books of Karganilla, Doyle and Attenborough. For days our backyard became a workshop with the touch of Scotland Yard, Mt Makiling and Jules Verne.
My children called the insect living pagoda because of the semblance of its house with the Chinese temple, and because of its turtle-like habit of retreating into its bag. Leo, our youngest fondly called it Ipi, contracted from “insect na parang pagong at pagodang intsik”.
Ipi belongs to the least known family of insects, Psychidae, which in French means mysterious. Yet its relatives, the moth and the butterfly, are perhaps the most popular and expressive members of the insect world.
Curious about the unique bag and how it was built by such a lowly insect, Matt and Chris Ann worked as research partners. They entered their data in a field notebook as follows:
1. Base diameter - 2 cm
2. Height of bag - 2 cm
3. No. of shingles on the bag - 20
4. Size ratio of shingles from base to tip – 10:1
5. Basic design – Overlap-spiral
We examined the specimen in detail with a hand lens and found that the bag has several outstanding features. My children continued their data entry, as follows:
1. Water-resistant (shingle roof principle)
2. Stress-resistant (pyramid principle)
3. Good ventilation (radiator principle)
4. Light yet strong (fibrous structure)
5. Camouflage efficient (mimicry and color blending)
6. Structural foundation - None
The pagoda bag has no structural foundation, I explained. It is carried from place to place by a sturdy insect which is a caterpillar, larva of a moth. Beneath its pagoda tent, it gnaws the leaf on the fleshy portion, prying off the epidermal layer to become circular shingles. Using its saliva, it cements the new shingles to enlarge its bag, then moves to a fresh leaf and repeats the whole operation. As
the larva grows, the shingle it cuts gets bigger,
This is a very rare case where construction starts at the tip and culminates at the base, noted my wife. Remember that the structure is supposed to be upside down because Ipi feeds from the underside of the leaf, I said. “An upside pagoda,” our children chorused.
As Ipi grows, the shingles progressively increase in size and number, thus the bag assumes the shape of a storied pagoda. Thus there are small
Pagodas and larger ones, and varied intermediate sizes, depending on the age of the caterpillar which continuously feeds for almost the whole summer during which it molts five times.
If there are no longer new shingles added to the bag it is presumed that the insect had stopped growing. It then prepares to pupate and permanently attaches its bag on a branch or twig, and there inside it goes into slumber. The attached bag appears like thorn as if it were a part of the tree, and indeed a clever camouflage on the part of the insect. Here suddenly is a parasite becoming a symbiont, arming the host tree with false thorns!
My children's curiosity seemed endless. I explained that like all living things, bagworms have self-preserving mechanisms. They must move away from the food leaf before it falls off. They must secure themselves properly as they tide up with their pupal stage. After a week later they metamorphose into adults. Here on the twigs and branches they escape potential predators. Here too, the next generation of newly hatched larvae will wait for new shoots on which they feed.
Matt picked one bag after another to find out what stage the insect is undergoing. I recalled my research on Cryptothelea fuscescens Heyl, a relative of C. heckmeyeri, the pagoda species. Chris Ann took down notes
1. Specimen 1 - Bag is less than 1 cm in diameter, caterpillar in third instar (molting), voracious feeder.
2. Specimen 2 - Bag large, construction complete, insect in fifth or sixth instar, morphological parts highly distinct, head and thorax thick, three pairs of powerful legs.
3. Specimen 3 - Insect in pupal stage, expected to emerge in one week, chrysalis (skin) full, dark and shiny. Feeding had completely stopped.
4. Specimen 4 - flag empty, opening clear, chrysalis empty.
5. Specimen 5 - Bag contains eggs laid on cottony mass, chrysalis empty.
The last specimen is intriguing. Where is the insect? Why did it abandon its lifelong home? A puzzle was painted on the face of our young Leo. So I explained.
Let us trace the life history of Ipi and its kind. Both male and female bagworms mature into moths. The winged male upon emerging from his bag is soon attracted by love scent emitted by a waiting female moth still ensconced in her bag. The scent is an attractant scientists call pheromone. Then in the stillness of summer night, her Romeo comes knocking. Without leaving her bag she receives him at an opening at the tip of the pagoda bag. A long honeymoon follows, but signaling an ephemeral life of the couple.
The fertilized female lay her eggs inside the bag, seals it with her saliva, then wiggles out to the outside world but only to fall to the ground - and die, because Nature did not provide her wings!
“Poor little thing,” muttered Cecille apparently in defense of the female species. “Nature did it for a reason,” I countered, “otherwise we would not have bagworms today.” The wingless condition of the female bagworm is the key to the survival of the species.
The sun had set, the litter of leaves had been cleaned up. And the silhouette of our leafless duhat tree against the reddening sky painted gloom on our subject. As dusk set in, I noticed nocturnal insects circling the veranda lamp. A moth paused, then passed over our heads and disappeared into a tree. “Bye, bye,", cried Leo Carlo.
Summer was short, the rains came early and our duhat tree developed robust foliage. Cicadas chirped at the upper branches and an early May beetle hang peacefully gnawing on young a leaf. I was reading Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring when a gust of wind brought down a dozen tiny bagworms hanging on their own invisible spinnerets. My children were aroused from their reading of The Living Planet.
We had unveiled the mystery of the pagoda bagworm, but above anything else, we found love and appreciation on the wonders of Nature and the unity of life itself. ~
Another species of bagworm (Crypthothela fuscescens Heylerts), Family Psychidae. Photos taken at Angels' Hills, Tagaytay. The larva builds a bag of dried twig of the same diameter and length and attaches on the host plant until it reaches maturity. The spent bag simply remains hanging. Lower photo shows an exposed larva purposely for study.
Bagworm (Crypthothela fuscescens Heylerts), Family PsychidaePhotos taken at Angels' Hills, Tagaytay.
Bagworms make bags out of pieces of stems and leaves attached to the host plant. The male insect emerges leaving behind its molt at the opening of the bag. The female is wingless and does not leave the bag. When ready for mating she exude sex pheromone to attract a winged male through the posterior opening to fertilize. After laying her eggs inside the bag, she pushes her way out and drops to the ground and dies. In a week's time the hatchlings emerge from the nursery bag and soon find food and start building their own bags. Lowest photos: full size bagworms. The caterpillar molts five or six times before becoming into pupa, and consequently adult. Exposed caterpillars in their fifth and final instars.
* Lesson on former Paaralang Bayan sa Himpapawid (People's School-on-Air) with Ms Melly C Tenorio 738 DZRB AM, 8-9 evening class Monday to Friday
Bird Kite - La Golondrina
A Tribute to the late Manong Bansiong Repulleza, Master Kite Maker, a native of San Vicente, Ilocos Sur.
Kites always fascinate me, thanks to Manong Bansiong, nephew of Basang my auntie-yaya. He made the most beautiful and the biggest kite in town. Remote and small a town San Vicente is, we had the reputation in the neighboring towns for our best kites, best pieces of furniture and wooden saints.
Manong Bansiong made different kites: sinang gola, agila, kayyang, golondrina – in the likes of bull, bird with outstretched wings, maiden in colorful, flowing dress, and many other designs. His kites were known for their strength, stability, beauty, and agility. In competitions he always brought home the bacon, so to speak.
“Can you make me a La Golondrina?” I found myself asking Manong Bansiong one afternoon.
Detail of mural by the author
La Golondrina or the swallow has slender streamlined body, and long pointed wings, which allow great maneuverability and endurance, as well as easy gliding. Her body shape allows efficient flight. Her wings have nine primary feathers each, while the tail has twelve feathers and may be deeply forked, somewhat indented. A long tail increases maneuverability, and serves as adornment.
As a child, I love to watch swallows in flight. And there is something special about them because I discovered their nesting ground in Caniao, the source of our faucet water. Caniao is a spring at the edge of Cordillera facing the South China Sea, some 20 kilometers away. The swallows roost on a very big tree and one particular bird came close and posed to us picnickers. She seemed unafraid and even sang a beautiful melody. I stalked to have a good look at her, but on sensing my closeness, she took off and soared like a kite in the wind.
Actually La Golondrina is a difficult design of a kite to make. But Manang Basiong was a real expert. He won’t back out at any kind of kite especially if it is for a contest. He always wanted his kites to win.
“When will be the contest?” He asked in our dialect.
With that statement and a kindly smile I knew Manong Bansiong would make my La Golondrina. “Yehay!” I could not help keep it a secret and soon everyone knew it and anticipated the big event.
The day of the contest came. There were many kites from our town and nearby towns. Vigan, the capital of the province had the most entries and the biggest kites at that. There were designs of airplanes, eagles and dragons, huge and colorful, and dominated the sky. But my confidence did not sag.
Then our turn came. La Golondrina appeared unique. She was not really very big. All eyes were on her. I asked my brother Eugene to help me carry her across the field while Manong Bansiong held the string at the other end.
“Farther … some more,” he signaled. “Stop.” He paused and whistled a few notes. It is a technique in kite flying. Release the kite at the moment a strong breeze comes. We waited for the precious wind.
Then it came. It was a gust of wind that came all the way from the North. It is called Siberian High, the wind that brings in the chills in October lasting throughout the Christmas Season. It is the wind of Amihan, the season we harvest our rice crop, when the grains turn to gold in the sun. It is the season farmers build haystacks (mandala) that look like giant mushrooms dotting the landscape. But to us kids, amihan is the season of kite flying. It is a season of games and laughter in the field.
“Steady now,” Manong Bansiong shouted, and Eugene and I raised La Golondrina and waited for the signal. “Now!”
She took off strong and soared above our heads, above the nearby trees, above the church steeple. Our town mates and my classmates rallied. They followed her ascent, and clapped, coaching to the top of their voices. “Up, up. Go up some more! More! More!” She mingled with the other kites, bowing here and there, sometimes flying close to the dragon or eagle, and to the airplane kites in some kind of greeting.
Manong Bansiong let the string glide on his hand, making a crispy whistling sound as our kite continued to rise. Now it was higher than any other kite. It appeared as if it were the smallest of them all, and one won’t recognize her if he did not see her first on the ground. Beyond lay the blue Cordillera the home of this beautiful bird. I could see Caniao in the back of my mind. She hovered steadily like a duchess in the sky. I wondered at how she looked at us down below. I just imagined we were also just specks on the ground, and if my T-shirt were not red, she would not be able to distinguish me from the spectators.
Then the unexpected happened. The string snapped! La Golondrina was adrift. She was flying free, and she was not coming down. Instead, she went farther up, riding on the wind current. Everyone was silent. All eyes were focused on the ill-fated kite. Soon it was but a dot in the sky. No one could tell what was going to happen.
Manong Bansiong rolled the remaining string back into its cage. “She didn’t get much string.” He muttered. My first impulse was to run to where she would most likely land. “No,” he said, catching me on the shoulder. Many had joined the chase.
I remained dumbfounded, agape at the wide, wide sky. Time stood still. There was a deafening silence. Nothing seemed to move. Not even the kites.
La Golondrina was swallowed up by a dark cloud and the cloud was heading for the mountains, as it often does, momentarily becoming part of its top like a veil or a blanket. During Amihan the cloud is thin and high because the wind is cool and dry. It is time for birds in the North to go down South, and return in the dry season. But for birds of La Golondrina’s kind, it is time to go home to nest and rear their young.
With that thought, I said, “She’s going home.” Manong Bansiong nodded in submission to the fate of his masterpiece. Eugene had just come back panting, brushing away weeds and dusts. He had given up the chase together with our town mates. Everyone talked about how they crossed the fields, climbed over fences, forge streams and even climbed trees to get better view of the route of the lost kite.
But no one knew where La Golondrina had landed.
We soon forgot all about the contest as we sadly prepared to go home. The plaza was empty now. It was already dark.
That night I dreamt I found La Golondrina in Caniao, hanging on a branch where I once saw her as a bird. How different she was from the once beautiful La Golondrina. But at least she had reached home at last.
Nesting swallow on a tree trunk
Manong Bansiong did not make kites anymore since then. But because of him I became a kite maker, too.
But time has changed. Kite flying has become an endangered art. Kids are more interested with other playthings. They have remote controlled toys and other electronic gadgets. They would rather stay indoors in front of the TV and the Computer. And they seem to be more serious in their studies than we were then. They seldom go out to the fields. Rivers and forests are full of danger. No, their parents won’t allow them to go to these places. Many of them have moved to the city, and flying kites in open spaces is very dangerous.
It consoles me to see a kite flying around, whether it is made of simple T-frame or plastic. Or one made in China. How different kites are today from the kites we had before.
When I reached the age Manong Bansiong was as kite maker, I also found joy in making kites for children. I am not as good as my mentor though. When Leo Carlo, my youngest son, took part in kite flying at the University of Santo Tomas, I helped him re-create La Golondrina. It was turning back the hands of time. He carried our kite across the football field with Marlo, his brother, and I, at the other end, held the string. We waited for the old friendly wind.
Leo Carlo and team display winning bird kite, UST.
Then it came, it came all the way from the North, and La Golondrina rode on it, flew above our heads, above the trees, above the grandstand and the chapel and the tall buildings, and up into the blue sky.
La Golondrina is the grandest kite of all. ~
4D- Lost in the Desert
A Short Story
Dr Abe V Rotor
Oasis at Sunset, acrylic painting by Miss Anna Christina Rotor, circa 2002
He has been there for some time now filling up a well he made in the sand with water from the sea.
“What are you doing?” I asked nonchalantly, knowing what a silly thing he was doing. I acted like a teacher with the critical nature of one showing up.
“You know, you can’t really fill your well, or empty the sea either.” I said with an aura of authority.
He looked up at me and beamed a smile in the sun. He was not just pouring water into his well; he was decorating it with seashells, seaweeds, corals and plants growing nearby. He was making a landscape.
Fish were not biting that morning so I folded up my fishing rod and passed by the boy's well again.
Why it was an oasis model he made! Complete with a sandcastle, a pathway, a retaining wall and waterhole. The boy was no longer there.
That was a long time ago when I had the luxury of spending a whole day or two fishing, when weekend is a day of leisure and unwinding from pressure of work.
Who cares about one boy out of millions of boys building oases and sandcastles? What is the boy’s name? Oh, the only thing that lingers in my head under graying hair is his lovely innocent face and charming smile.
Years later, in my last year in government service I was sent to Israel to attend a Food and Agriculture Organization sponsored conference. What a luck! A pilgrimage to the Holy Land!
Tourists in general, love to take side trips, and I am no exemption. After touring Israel “tracing the footsteps of Christ,” I decided to continue on to Egypt where the Holy Family, according to the bible visited. So I joined a tour from Tel-Aviv to Cairo via the Sinai Peninsula, crossing the Suez Canal.
In the middle of the desert, we the passengers were told to register somewhere at the border of Israel and Egypt, before reaching the Gaza Strip. We left our bus and proceeded to an isolated police headquarters. The inspector looked at my passport and started questioning me in Arabic. I didn’t understand a word. He presented me to the officer-in-charge who spoke a little English. He said they are on a lookout for terrorists who attacked a tourist bus. After examining my papers which included those about the conference I had just attended, he sort of apologized and let me go.
Outside I met a blinding sandstorm. I lost my way to my bus. When I saw it, it was already far and moving away. I ran after it shouting until I was exhausted. Was it a mirage?
When the sandstorm subsided I found myself alone. “Where is the station, the road?” I was talking to myself, feeling abandoned.
In the desert the reference for direction is the sun, and at night the moon and stars. I remember the pilot lost in the desert in The Little Prince by Antoine De Saint-Exupery. And Coleridge’s Water, Water Everywhere about a mariner lost at sea.
The sun was now going down. I reckoned, “If you go west, you will reach the Mediterranean.” So I walked toward the sun. Sand trapped in my shoes made my feet sore. “Surely there are buses, cars and people around,” I said, always keeping an eye on the horizon.
But there was none. I remembered what the tourist guide said, “Vehicles travel on the Sinai in convoy. You can’t travel alone on the long stretch of sand.” What if my bus was in the last convoy for that day?
I had never felt so hungry and thirsty in my life, and now fear was creeping in. I was empty handed; I left everything in the bus. “Now where is my hand-carry bag? My medicine? My camera? I had left them, too. Why did my bus leave without me? They should have made a roll call, at least a headcount.” I was in soliloquy. I was like the old man in Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea talking to himself in the middle of the sea. “But he had a boat. I have none.”
I used to tell tall stories, “You know, I was assigned in very dangerous places,” referring to Cordillera and Samar island, bailiwick of bandits and rebels. But here the enemy is different - it is emptiness. And I would continue, “You know, I was twice taken hostage by dissidents and never gave in to their demands.” What if they tagged me an Arab terrorist! Here courage just turn into bravado, a kind of bahala na stance. I began to despair.
Sitting on top of a dune I imagined Alexander the Great searching for the Oracle at the Oasis of Siwa near Cairo. According to history he got lost, but how can a man destined to conquer the world get lost? That’s legend, and legends are for great people. And here I'm but a lost soul.
Oasis! That’s a bright idea. I could almost hear the melody of the song, The Desert is Hiding a Well. Yes, if I find date palms and olive trees, there must be an oasis nearby.” And perhaps people living there, and travelers passing by.
Climbing on to the crest of a taller dune reminded me of Golgotha. "I would rather die on top of sand dune than be buried under it." So I stayed there straining my sight to where an oasis might lie. Again I remembered the Little Prince, not the story but what he symbolized – inner vision, unending hope. I needed any kind of encouragement now. I was desperate.
Suddenly, something reflected at the foot of a crescent dune, hidden by another. Water?
Eureka! Eureka!
And down the dune I ran, sliding and tumbling, and in a record time reached a greenery of date palms and olives, a waterfall pouring into a small lake, its water shimmering with the rays of sunset. I cupped the precious liquid with my hands and immediately quenched my thirst. And slept.
I saw a boy repeatedly filling up a well he made in the sand with water from the sea.
“What are you doing?” I asked. “You can’t succeed filling your well, or emptying the sea either.” He looked at me, his face beamed in the sun, and continued with his craft. When I returned I found a beautiful landscape - an oasis!
When I woke up I was in a clinic, in the same headquarters I was earlier interrogated. A search team found me unconscious of dehydration and delirious with high fever.
“What is the name of that beautiful oasis?” I asked. The attendants just looked at each other. One of them wearing a stethoscope said, “You need more rest. Tomorrow we will take you to Cairo”
Today, I care about that boy, and millions of boys making oases and sandcastles.
What is the boy’s name? It does not matter. For the best thing that lingers in my head under graying hair is his lovely innocent face and charming smile, and a lovely masterpiece he made. ~
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