As of: March 1, 2024, 2:21 p.m
By: Sophie Kluß
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A Sydney woman finds a mysterious animal in her garden and posts it to a Facebook group.
The guesswork begins - but an expert knows the solution.
Exciting news about a mysterious creature is currently keeping internet users on the edge of their seats.
Blick.ch
and
Yahoo News Australia,
for example, report on the cute animal that an Australian woman is said to have found and photographed in her garden in Sydney.
In a local
group, she is said to have asked based on the photos whether anyone knew “what this strange little creature is?”, according to
Blick.ch
.
Now many people are puzzling over the strange animal - even Australians themselves, who are usually assumed to be beyond shock when it comes to flora and fauna.
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Curious find in the garden: little animal even amazes Australians
In the photos you can see a small light brown creature with a small tail.
What's special, however, are two round, comic-like eyes that appear to be on the animal's head.
According to
Blick.ch,
one of the woman's neighbors is said to have commented: "I seriously thought you had glued googly eyes on a strangely shaped stocking." Another wrote: "That's the cutest thing I've ever seen."
The English-Australian conservationist, gardener and plant curator Jerry Coleby-Williams also posted the animal on both his website and his
account some time ago.
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Facebook user knows the solution – expert confirms suspicion
And the woman's question in the Facebook
group actually turned out
to be useful - because one of the members was able to identify the mysterious animal as a butterfly caterpillar.
Entomologist Andrew Mitchell
finally confirmed this suspicion to
Yahoo News Australia .
Accordingly, the crawler is the larva of a moth with the Latin name Theretra latreillii.
Mitchell said the species is widespread in Australia but is difficult to spot due to its camouflage.
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Dr.
Darrell Kemp, a biologist from Macquarie University Sydney, also explained to
Yahoo
the purpose of the colorful cartoon eyes, which are not real eyes at all, but just eye-like spots.
They are therefore intended to deter predators.
“The eyespots (…) are intended to give the appearance of a larger (potentially dangerous) animal,” explained Kemp.
The drawing is intended to disrupt the perception of predators by interrupting the animal's outline, the biologist said.
Cartoon eyes aren't the only defense strategy
When threatened, the larvae have another secret weapon up their sleeve: “When threatened, they inflate the front of their body, lifting it into the air, retracting their head slightly and, when viewed from the front, can look quite convincingly like a snake,” explained entomologist Andrew Mitchell.
“Some species even hiss and hit you.” Despite their impressive demeanor, the researcher reassures them that they are harmless.
In any case, with all the camouflage and defense measures, it is “pretty impressive” that the Australian discovered the animal at all, concludes the online service
Yahoo
.
This strange caterpillar that a man found in his garden also caused perplexed faces.