Mystery Caterpillar!
We have the neatest caterpillar on a lilac leaf in our front yard. We noticed it about 2 weeks ago, the top picture is from Sept 4th and the other ones are from the 17th. Its crazy how its grown and it seems to be using the leaf like a chrysalis (there is a little white web like stuff) and doesn’t leave the leaf at all. The kids like to check on it when Ethan gets off the school bus everyday. It had 2 long antenna things sticking out the day I took the second pictures but they were gone when I came back with the camera. I am assuming the “eyes” are fake but I don’t know anything about this cute little guy.
*Okay I did a little looking on the web and think it might be a Tiger Swallowtail caterpillar (or some other Swallowtail). If it is then it will turn into the butterfly below! I think one year we’ll have to order a caterpillar kit to raise and release some butterflies at home (Ethan’s class has monarchs now and he is excited about them).
**Check out What’s That Bug?, its a really neat site! We linked to it last summer when we had our friend Sally Spider living with us and I used it to look up the caterpillar quick just now. This caterpiller is no Sally but its special too and I love the picture I took below of it!
***The DEC is another great resource for animal identification. I found a couple of PDFs for caterpillars and butterflies on our area. Page 1 Page 2
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Terrific photos! What a cute caterpillar!
I did some more research and according to Wikipedia, the tiger swallowtail caterpillar will sway around when it is harassed to imitate a snake. If you keep bugging it, two red appendages will come out that resemble a snakes forked tongue! I’ll try to hunt down a video of this behavior, but I’ll leave our little friend alone.
Oh he’s so handsome. Leave him alone!!
What an awesome caterpillar! I hope it stays so you get to see it transform!
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That is the coolest catepillar and I love the pics!
I think you are definitely right about it being a tiger swallowtail. My son was intensely into caterpillars and butterflies for a while there, and I became inadvertently educated on the subject.