I’ve finally found them!! I found them!!! So many years of searching and I found them!!
I’ve finally found Hairy Mary caterpillars on the base of Urambi Hills in the ACT! (Excuse the mobile photo, my camera is charging...)
Hairy Mary is the name given to the Anthela Varia and they are very elusive. Living on barky gum trees that camouflage them well, they eat gum leaves and can grow quite big. They’re an Australian native and about 70% of the population will react to their fluff. Luckily for me, I’m in the 30% that doesn’t react so I can very carefully handle them when cleaning their enclosure.
I’ve only encountered these 3 times in my 31 years.
The first time was in the Blue Mountains at Walerawang NSW, I was 7 and named it Jack. It was nearly as long as my forearm and turned into a big, beautiful cocoon... but the cocoon disappeared from the enclosure and I never got a clear answer why but I was devastated.
The second time was in Bredbo Park NSW. I found 2-3 but didn’t want to make a mistake in raising them. After what happened last time, I put them back in the tree and left them.
Since starting this blog, it’s been a main mission to find these caterpillars and it took about 6 years of constant searching! But now I have them and I’ll be taking many photos and videos to add to the small collection of data that the internet has, raising them until they’re moths and releasing them back to Urambi Hills.
I hope you’ll join me on this journey!