2025, Nature, pets, Uncategorized

Going Buggy

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The other day our terrier came into the house with a large, green caterpillar in his mouth. We got it away from him before he could eat it but it was clearly dead.

Our deck off the back of the house has a pergola that is covered by layers of grape vines. It provides nice shade and also harbors birds who like to eat the grapes. A night or two ago I was sitting on the deck when the green wiggler in the header photo dropped to the floor right in front of me. I guess the vines also provide a nice environment for caterpillar development. The caterpillar was still alive, so I moved it into some bushes so the birds and dog would have difficulty finding it. I hope it gets a chance to form a cocoon.

One of my favorite memories from Grade 3 is finding a really big cocoon and bringing it to class. My teacher let me keep it in the classroom, and a couple of days later we came to school to find an enormous Cercropia moth flying around the room. I don’t know what kind of caterpillar our green one is, but I hope it doesn’t turn into a destructive moth.

Any idea what kind of caterpillar this is? Ever have an insect collection?

15 thoughts on “Going Buggy”

  1. No and no. While I am pretty sure that I would have moved the caterpillar as well because I have moved daddy longlegs and other critters before, I’m not a big insect/bug person.

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    1. Oh, that! As a young adult I had to learn some lessons in food storage to prevent insect collections. Yesterday I chased some flies around all day. One persisted into bedtime and buzzed my head. Argh.

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  5. I had to do an insect collection for high school Biology, so they were all dead (well, we killed them in a jar with nail polish remover on cotton. I learned so much from that about our town – collected them down by the creek, etc.

    I finally used chemicals to get rid of the ants this summer, had them in the kitchen and the bathroom. Before I finally used a product called Maggie’s Farm (similar to Terro), they showed me a LOT about food storage, toothpaste storage…

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  6. Rise and Come Out of Your Cocoon, Baboons,

    I tried several times to have an insect collection as a kid, but I lost interest every time. There was too much other stuff to do.

    We have had a great butterfly year here. We have had many different kinds and many numbers of them. The monarchs are everywhere (and we have a lot of milkweed). We have had yellow and black swallowtails, as well. Because I had surgery early in gardening season, I did not get parsley planted. Those Caterpillars eat parsley so I did not see them this year, but we still had the butterflies here.

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  8. We had a very extensive collection of insects when I was growing up. It’s called a barn.
    I keep wondering why daddy-long-legs crawl way up my patio screen door.
    OT Sandra has a new hospice aide, who happens to be my granddaughter’s classmate in a class of 45 an hour west of here. He saw her picture on the fridge in Sandra’s room.

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  9. Very little in grade school.
    I won’t even consider one now.
    I will kill fruit flies because I cannot capture them.
    Hell, I avoid stepping on ants!
    Taking a butterfly of any species as a trophy is right out!
    I admit to imperfect knowledge about how insects have been part of human development but I dare say that without them humans would not exist.

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