When I was a kid, I found a green caterpillar with short stalks in rows
running up its back. The top of each stalk had short black hairs around
it and a beautiful colored dot in the center. I named it Colorful and
promptly lost it in the house. I was sad for a few days until we found
a large cocoon on the underside of one of our kitchen chairs. I kept
it in a jar until a large butterfly emerged and I let it go.
As a grown-up, I began to doubt my memory of how incredibly cool and
colorful the caterpillar was. But today, in the Austin American
Statesman, there was a picture of the same type of caterpillar Colorful
was. It's the vertical caterpillar. It is sooo cool looking! According to the paper, it's
a cecropia caterpillar.
The Statesman has more cool caterpillar pictures here.
Didn't we have cool nice parents? I'm still curious like that and I still enjoy all that nature stuff more than just about anything. Remember when we let the praying mantis eggs hatch out on the porch and there were thousands of babies and they all ate each other?
A little late, but I've been meaning to tell you that I really like this photo. Love the caterpillars, the colors and detail and the shape they create together. Only wish the background was more out of focus so that the caterpillars and their symmetry pop out more.
Colorful