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It is not a piece of ceramic from Antiquity, although it may seem to us that it is shaped like an amphora, but it is also a natural treasure. This is a specimen of the bindweed sphinx pupa, unearthed. Is gardening also archaeology?
The gardener, David, was digging the soil of the medieval garden of the Pedralbes monastery in Barcelona, ??as if he were an archaeologist in search of a piece of history, and he came across this very large pulp of the sphinx of the bindweed, which I have portrayed for La Vanguardia’s Readers’ Photos.
As this butterfly is nocturnal, it is not easy to see it and, furthermore, it is migratory. That is why being able to find this pupa could be said to be like discovering a relic of nature.
It is considered that gardening was born in two places coinciding in time: in ancient Egypt and in China. The biblical reference to a garden as the primordial territory where humanity was happy connects with a belief that considers that maximum happiness is found between an orderly and pleasant nature. And archeology is precisely the science that studies, describes and interprets our past based on its remains and clues that it has left us.
In this case, it is gardening that reveals a buried treasure. And it must also be said that the bindweed sphinx (Agrius convolvuli) has two size records in Catalonia.
On the one hand, with its 14 cm wingspan and 8 cm body length, it is the largest butterfly of the sphinx family, only surpassed by the great peacock (Saturnia pyri) of the saturniid family. On the other hand, it is the butterfly that has the longest proboscis, 10-12 cm long, among those that flutter around here.
The pupa is the state that the butterfly goes through to carry out metamorphosis. It is intermediate in its life cycle. It is the chrysalis or nymph. In the case of the bindweed sphinx, it will end up becoming an impressive animal. In static flight and drinking nectar from a flower with its very long trunk, it reminds us of a hummingbird.
And if this sphinx butterfly has a proboscis, the curious thing is that the plant that gives it its name, the bindweed, has a trumpet. Its flowers have a trumpet shape, with a diameter of 1 to 2.5 cm, pale pink or white in color, with five slightly darker pink radial stripes.
It is a climbing herbaceous perennial plant, which grows up to a height of 2 meters. We can also see it in detail in this report. Its leaves are distributed in a spiral, they are linear with a terminal arrowhead shape.
The female sphinx lays her eggs on the leaves of the bindweed. The caterpillar has a horn-like appendage in the caudal area, as seen in detail in one of the photographs. These larvae eat the leaves of this plant that gives them their name and that gardening reveals to us, just as archeology dazzles us by showing us who we are, reminding us of who we were.