Yes, the vine is a Virginia Creeper, but it hides creepers of a different variety. They are hornworms–the larvae of the hummingbird moth. Every year around this time they come here to dine on the Virginia Creeper, which would be no problem except for the little round balls of excretions they leave all over my terrace and patio table. We find and relocate them to the spare lot. Since the patterns on the four colors of larvae are the same, I’ve always thought they are stages of coloration of the one caterpillar. The fourth color is vivid green. I’ve done blogs on them before. I can find no mention of this elsewhere, although I have seen the larvae pictured on the internet in all of the colors except red. At the largest stage, they are 3 to 4 inches long.

For Cee’s FOTD