“Daniel, will you please come into the house and wash up for dinner? It’s getting dark.”
Daniel did his best to ignore his mother’s voice. This was the third warning, and he knew that any moment his father would be sent out to fetch him. Which means he needed to work fast.
“Here you go, easy girl,” he said. He didn’t know how he was so sure this was a female. He just was. He held the jar near, and gently prodding the caterpillar with a Q-tip, but she made no response.
He frowned and looked more closely. She was definitely alive. Possibly stunned unconscious after falling from the tree.
“You are an odd little thing,” he said. She looked a bit like Papilio machaon, and a bit like Danaus plexippus, but not really like either. Maybe something new! He felt a wave of excitement.
Daniel heard his father’s footsteps coming up the path. Delicately he picked up the caterpillar between thumb and forefinger and placed her gently in the jar.
“Hey sport,” his father said, trying to sound jovial, but Daniel wasn’t fooled. He could smell the beer on his dad’s breath, and he knew what that meant.
“Dad, I think she might be a new species.”
“A bug isn’t a she, it’s an it. Anyway, it can’t be,” his father said, “there are no new species. Just species we haven’t named yet. You’ll need to know that if you want to be an etymologist.”
“Entomologist, dad, not etymologist.” Daniel looked thoughtful for a moment. “But yes, that’s something an etymologist would need to know too.”
He was about to explain the difference, but just in time he saw the frown cloud his father’s face, and decided this might not be the best time. “Thanks for coming to get me. I’ll go in and wash up.”