oksanaetal's Journal

I got to witness some neat caterpillar behavior today.
I noticed a lot of black swallowtail caterpillars on dill plants, and wanted to examine their facial features more clearly. Attempting to pick one up, I accidentally knocked it to the ground. I felt bad, and tried to put it back on the plant. In that moment, two long orange horns seemingly appeared out of nowhere on the caterpillar's head, and the caterpillar leaned back as if to stab me with them. Startled, I quickly put the insect on the plant immediately and got a photo: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/233827826

Please note that the full sized "horns" were about four times longer than the ones in this photo; the caterpillar had already partially retracted them.

It's just like they say: you learn something new every day.

There is a plan to recreate the beautiful chestnut forests that have been lost to an introduced fungal disease, chestnut blight. A group of people have developed a blight-resistant strain of American chestnuts, called the 'Darling 58' chestnuts, by somehow genetically modifying the plant so it would have close to 100% immunity to the disease. The plan is to get permission from the USDA and start planting them in the wild by I think 2025. There are already plots of these trees growing out in the open across the eastern US. Soon, the beauty of a chestnut forest may again be a reality. What an amazing plan.

Right?

Wrong. This might be the perfect answer, but it is a new field of study that is just a few decades in the making. I don't think we should go around planting genetically engineered (GE) trees before the field has been thoroughly researched, especially into the wild. With domesticated crops such as tomatoes and wheat, it is more understandable, but when you are trying to affect the ecosystem on a large scale, it is a bad idea to walk blindfolded into the unknown.
This is supposed to be a restoration project, but are these plants really American chestnuts?
We have to make these decisions now, because once the pollen has mixed with other trees, it is too late, and we might lose the remaining wild chestnuts forever. Please let me know your opinion in the comments and learn more here: https://stopgetrees.org/

Thank you!