Hummingbird and Butterfly Gardening: Look who come to visit, 3 by scarletbean

scarletbean wrote:
I love Luna moths! I have found a caterpillar or 2 each year for the past 3 years and brought them in to cocoon and hatch. I have pecan trees in the yard and that is their preferred food for here. Last year I found this guy in the picture late in the year. It cocooned and then did nothing....waited and waited...I thought it may have died, and then found info that it will overwinter. I gave it to a neighbor and it just came out a couple days ago.

The 3rd pic is of a caterpillar I found in my yard last year burrowing near the mulch pile. It was huge! maybe 5 inches long and fat as my thumb. Turns out it is a Horned Devil ! They feed on hickory as caterpillars, and then burrow underground to do their metamophosis. I i cant remember the name of the resulting moth, but I remember it is not as big as you'd think from the size of the caterpillar. It is also somewhat dull in color. the spines are harmless, but look fierce! It was hard to get any good pics, because this caterpillar can scoot! It was constantly in motion and i took about 15 pics and hardly any do it justice. The turquoise color was almost pearlescent. I think it was ready to get to digging so I was detaining it and it was not gonna cooperate for it's captor. I let him go near a pile of mulch and compost that I wont use til fall so I dont accidentally dig it up.