Chopper The CutWorm

The Gigantic Cutworm

 June is often a wet month. Late spring showers occur with hardly any warning!  The garden patch needs to be checked diligently for wet weather creatures that thrive in the moist environments amongst the greens of young plants.  There is a special predator that requires a keen, sharp eye to spot, the famously, voracious Cutworm!   The Cutworm loves wet weather AND young green plants that are trying their best to establish roots and grow strong.  The gardener likes to think they are growing for the honor of decorating the dinner plate, but most likely it is that insatiable desire of life to live that empowers the plants.

It is a horrifying experience discovering a cutworm curled up around the stem of a young cabbage that is a dream of hope for a tasty summer coleslaw .  Part of the horror is the thought of missing out on the delicious treat.  The other , even more horrific  dilemma is deciding what to do with the Cutworm.

Tossing it out of the garden does not solve the problem, as it would crawl back into the greenery and continue with its chopping mandibles.  The dream of fresh coleslaw would be destroyed.   If  crushed  under foot , there is the ethical question would the Cutworm feel pain.  Would the Cutworm feel a sense of despair at losing the heat of life? Cutworms eat purposefully to build energy for its reproductive life as an adult moth.

A cutworm seems to be more sentient than a plant. It moves with purpose and knows exactly how to find the leafy greens in the garden.  But exactly how sentient?  And can sentience be considered a form of consciousness?

Can you understand the dilemma of the gardener when, during an early morning perusal, discovered the most exquisite cutworm, measuring at 7 centimeters long with a circumference of a plump inch.  Healthy and enjoying life in the moist, cool conditions of the cabbage canopy, I ask you the reader, was the cutworm aware of the predator about to decide it’s fate?