I have a whole new crop of caterpillar photos, thanks to Yolanda and Pasiano who had them all lined up on the patio table for me last week. Pasiano had been picking the hornworm caterpillars off the overhead Virginia creeper vines over the patio, and knowing how fascinated I am with them, they’d produced a display of all the different stages. I saw a new one this time. In sixteen years, I’ve never see the smallest red stage–the one with the horn that seems to eventually grow into an eye. In the third photo, you can see its size in relation to the largest size. Here they are, modelling their finery for us before being relocated to the vacant lot. We never kill caterpillars in this house. They are fascinating creatures that I both love and dread to see every year. I don’t begrudge them their food—just their poop and how hard it is to find and relocate them.
I hope you click on the first photo to enlarge and read the commentary as you see the slide show.
Hey!!! Wasn’t this feature supposed to be about cats???? Curiouser and curiouser.
For Cee’s prompt: https://ceenphotography.com/2017/09/05/cees-fun-foto-challenge-c-the-c-word-needs-to-be-at-least-4-letters-in-length/
lifelessons - a blog by Judy Dykstra-Brown 
When my son was little, he called them “cactapuckers” and drew one that started in the kitchen and creatively continued all the way through the house to the bathroom. Including rugs, lampshades, walls. As a mass artistic effort, it was admirable. That we’d only had the rugs installed the previous day and he’d used permanent ink black markers? Oh, it was a long scrub!
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I LOVE cactapuckers!!! It’s just what they look like, actually.. a big somewhat spineless cactus finger. In the green stage, at least. You got that permanent marker off? Reminds me of when I spilled an entire bottle of one minute-drying red nailpolish on my niece’s carpet!!! I switched back to the usual kind. Took me hours but I got it all up with a couple of bottles of nail polish remover, scrub sponges and a wrecked manicure! How did you get perm marker off? Hope you locked up the markers afterwards.
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They ARE fascinating! I don’t think I’ve ever seen a pink caterpillar — but then they turn to gray or brown! What does the moth/butterfly look like?
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It looks like a humminbird as it hovers over blossoms with its very long tongue out, sipping nectar. It folds its wings in as it fans them to hover and looks like a hummingbird.
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It is so vivid pink that it is closer to red, actually.
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Is that the same one you talked about the other day that is like a tomato worm?
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Yes.. called a tomato worm, hornworm, hummingbird moth caterpillar. Fellows of multiple costume changes as well as names.
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Thanks!
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But I like Marilyn’s young son’s name best: cactapuckers.
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A perfect name for them!!! That even beats my friend’s calipopters for helicopters!
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Fascinating! Never seen them in these colours!
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With your photo write up your single cat works. Well done. 😀 😀
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I love these photos, especially that last one in its final stage. Beautiful caterpillar!
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I know. Every year, I just have to take photos of these guys and there is always some new surprise. This year it was the little red ones. And the realization that that little antennae disappears and turns into an eye. Now how does that happen?
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Hey, I had no clue that antennae turned into an eye! Now I’ll be looking out more closely! 🙂
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Well, I don’t know.. but I started to notice that the antenna disappears and there is an eye in the middle. At one point I thought the antennae was on the tail but then for awhile I thought the tail end was the head end. I’ve been watching these fellas for sixteen years and I’m still learning new things. We’ll solve this puzzle between us, perhaps. I could take the easy way out and Google extensively, but more fun to adopt a childish process of investigation and just look!!! Closely.
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