Tuesday, September 15, 2009

Caterpillar

This past weekend, Donald and I took the dog for a walk, and along our way, we saw one of these:

4-inch long regal moth caterpillar with green skin and several horns sticking out of its head and body sitting on grass
From Copyright © 2009 GValHart

I nearly stepped on it and I cried out in delight, causing the dog to get excited and pull Donald into the road. Luckily there were no oncoming cars.

Unfortunately, because we had the dog with us and we were trying to train her to walk better on a leash, I could not play with this HUGE caterpillar. I had to keep walking and Donald kept hushing me to stop squeaking with excitement about how big it was. I had never seen anything like it before in my life.

I did a little research today to figure out what it was. Besides, of course, an alien demon come to take over the world. The one I saw was at least as big as the one pictured above (4 inches), if not bigger. It was magnificent.

It's a Regal Moth Caterpillar. It turns into one of these:

Full grown Regal Moth with a fuzzy, orange body and orange and grey striped wings
From Stephen Cresswell

I think I HAVE seen one of these, but do a quick Google Image search and check out how big and fuzzy and pretty they are!

I just wanted to share.

4 comments:

  1. I had a few of those in my garden one year. They get so big! They really are beautiful but they can eat a whole PLANT down to the stub overnight. Wow.

    Hi Daphne, What a cute blog! I am excited I found some blogs to follow too.
    :-)

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  2. Angelia, thanks so much for commenting on my blog! I'm looking forward to checking out your site too. I'm glad these caterpillars haven't made it into my garden - I might have to like them a little less!

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  3. That thing is huge! I would have squealed in excitement, too!

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  4. Kara, thanks so much for your comment! I'm really glad it was so colorful and ferocious looking, otherwise we might have accidently stepped on it and never have seen it. The wonders of Nature!

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