OK, I found this guy on the end of a weed in my yard this am. He is huge about 3 inches extended. He looks like a mini black baby bottle brush. LOL. Under neath the black there are orange bands
NEED CAT ID
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That looks like a "wooly worm" that turns into a moth.
Legend has it that if he has more black on him that brown it will be a very cold and snowy winter.
Tried to google him for you, but not much comes up.
Jan,
kinda resembles a pipevine swallowtail from the picture.
but think yours is too wooley
This message was edited Aug 5, 2006 3:17 PM
I thought this was a wooly bear too, but it wasn't quite right. Those red bands are characteristic of something else and I finally tracked it down. It is the larva of a giant leopard moth, one of the more colorful arctiid moths. There are pictures of both adults and caterpillars at::
http://bugguide.net/node/view/493/bgimage
If you know what it was eating maybe you could rear it out. If it was just crawling across the ground and is 2.5 inches or more, it might be ready to pupate now which will save some rearing work. The moth is so pretty that it would be worth the effort to see. But then I enjoy bugs!
-FM
That's it!. I had him but he escaped. LOL Oh well, nice to know what it was.
This is a very informative website I found on this moth - including a list of hostplants and hibernation info:
http://www.hiltonpond.org/ThisWeek020608.html