Today I dropped Emma off at school and then had to go to the office to sign her up for girl scouts. Afterwards Ryan, Sean and I were walking off of campus when I noticed something moving on the wall in a very high traffic area. I stopped and showed the boys what I think is a huge cool looking caterpillar. It was about 4-5 inches long and about the width of your thumb. It was smooth except for the black fuzzy ring around the middle. It had mimicry in the fact that it had the fake eye markings on the body. When we touched it, the front part puffed up and it looked like a head. (See second photo) It was so fascinating, I actually would have kept it but was scarred it might be a little dangerous. I loved being able to show my boys the different parts of the caterpillar because you could see the legs, antennae, and face with much detail. I believe this is the first blog I have written positively about bugs.
UPDATE: My mother did some research today, and sent my picture to a bug website and they told her that we found a Two-tailed Swallowtail
Caterpillar. He is brown here because he is getting ready to turn into a cacoon. There are some wild varieties, and here is an example of what the butterfly will look like. Thanks mom!
10 comments:
You're welcome. It was a fun research project.
Wow! Who would think a caterpillar could be that cool looking? And then turn into that beautiful butterfly! Cool! So, mom is good because I never would have thought to send the picture to a bug website. Nice.
Sweet!! We found one of those last year--the first and last time I've ever seen one. We put it in a jar so we could show Jake that night, and I was going to release it the next day. When I went to release it, though, it looked dead--the bright red was now brown, it wasn't moving, and it had cemented itself to the side of the jar. I'm so lame. I pried it out so I could wash my jar and realized it moved a little. So we took it back to where we found it. But I'm pretty sure it had been in the middle of creating its cocoon and we killed it....
I'm glad to know what it was now. I took a ton of pictures at the time too, because it was so unreal.
Hey, it's been forever, I talked to shiloh today and he gave me your blog address, you can follow the link of my name to look at mine, and I have a link for Kjelstroms too. Laytons' blog is private, but I could email her your info for an invite. Looks like you guys are busy bees, or should I say butterflies? So excited that we can keep in touch better now through blogging!
Rachel
www.markandrachfamily.blogspot.com
How cool is THAT?!!!!! and what a beautiful butterfly that is!!
Did you find some one kinder than me to come help you with your flat--I am so sorry i couldn't . My life is upside down right now with family living with me!
I meant jump
Oh my gosh we just saw one of these caterpillars at our house today! My kids thought it was very cool.
wow--your mom is a great researcher!! That caterpillar was cool! I haven't heard/read the word 'mimicry' since i taught 2nd grade--thanks for the memories =)
Very cool bug! I almost didn't think it was real!
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