caterpillars – My Little Country

(Note: I began this post in 2021. For some reason, I never finished it. Well, caterpillar season is almost here, so I thought it would be a great time to get this thing published. -A., March 2024)

Today was a banner day for finding caterpillars. It was overcast all day today so the ‘pillars were easy to spot and also pretty darn active.

The first one I saw was big! It was over three inches long. After looking online, I believe it’s the caterpillar of the White Lined Sphinx moth, Hyles lineata. At this size, they are ready to burrow underground to pupate. Interestingly, there are many different color morphs of these caterpillars, so my caterpillar may not look like yours at all, colorwise. They can also be quite black.

The next caterpillar was found on my toadflax plants. They are wildflowers here and one year I discovered that there were all of these little caterpillars munching away on them. I had to identify them and found they the Common Buckeye, Junonia coenia, a truly beautiful butterfly.

As I was looking at the Buckeyes, I found another caterpillar I hadn’t seen before. This was a Tobacco Budworm, Heliothis virescens. True to its name, it was eating the buds of a toadflax. I think I’ll go pick him off later. I don’t need anything eating my buds or flowers. At least not this one. These caterpillars tend to take on the color of the plant they are eating on, so again, this one may look different from one you find.

Next we move onto some more annoying agricultural pests. These feed on cole crops, like broccoli, cabbage, kale, bok choi, etc. First up, the Cabbage Looper, Trichoplusia ni . Ugh. They have tiny little heads but eat like they are the size of an elephant. Gahhhhhh, these drive me crazy. Please note the tiny, wasp-like thing. I have no idea what it is but 3 years after taking this picture, I just now noticed it!

Now let’s go to my other enemy, the Cross-Striped Cabbageworm, Evergestis rimosalis…This one is just as destructive and there are usually far more of them found together than the Looper. They are the worst! However, I use a Bt (Bacillus thuringiensis) spray by Monterey that works wonders. You can also use a spray containing spinosad, but I haven’t tried this. The absolute SECOND you see holes in your crops, spray it down! You’ll be able to keep things like kale even throughout our horrible Texas summers if you do (unless the drought gets them of course. At least it won’t be caterpillars!).

Now the next one is what I’m pretty sure is a Saltmarsh moth (Estigmene acrea) but I’m not positive. That year, we have a ton of them crawling all over the roads. They come in just about every color, so it makes it harder for me to identify.

Last of all, we have a freshly molted mystery caterpillar. I think it may be a Yellow Bear AKA Virginian Tiger Moth (Spilosoma virginica). What do you think?

Thanks for taking the 2021 tour of the Caterpillar Village with me! I hope it helps you to identify some of your caterpillars this year. If you are a book-a-holic like me and you need more caterpillar ID in your life, I can’t recommend the book Caterpillars of Eastern North America by David L. Wagner enough. I use this guide every single year. It is for species east of the 100th meridian (see below):

Otherwise, I use Google Lens through my camera app on my phone, but it’s iffy in some cases so I just go home and refer to my book. That’s Gen X for ya!

Now to see what the 2024 ‘pillar season will bring!

Even as a very young child, I have always been attracted to the ‘creepy crawlies’ of Nature. Snakes, spiders, insects, invertebrates…whatever most people had nightmares about, I was usually out catching them with my faithful bug net.

I think about my elementary school playground teacher, Mrs. Brown. Poor Mrs. Brown. Mrs. Brown probably had some sort of insect phobia (unbeknownst to me) and I was always trying to hand Mrs. Brown all sorts of insects in the schoolyard. “But, Mrs. Brown, they won’t hurt you!”, I would plead. She would graciously turn down my tent caterpillar, grasshopper, etc. I am not sure if she ever did eventually hold any of my prized finds. Anyway, Mrs. Brown was in the same Sunday school class as my Mamaw and would always tell her how I was forever trying and trying to get her to hold one of my critters and how I would chase boys with worms.

Anyway, I am proud to say that my own little ones are fairly fearless around invertebrates, and little Zoe carried around a poor tent caterpillar for days, calling it, “my little friend”. Tent caterpillars, though somewhat destructive to some trees, have always intrigued me. Honestly, they look like a crawling Oriental rug. Their patterns are so complex and beautiful. Here is one of Zoe’s ‘little friends’:

Of course, these little guys do not possess stinging hairs, however many caterpillars DO and some are extremely painful, so be sure you know what you’re picking up! Here is another little guy I found on one of our gates the other day.

Generally, the more colorful the caterpillar, the best it is to NOT TOUCH. Not always true, though, as in the case of the potentially dangerous Puss caterpillar , which is what your grandparents call an ‘asp’. I remember Mamaw nearly having a heart attack when I found a Wooly Bear larvae one day beside her house. “Asp! Asp! You stay away from that!” as my Papaw ground the poor little Wooly Bear into oblivion. Naturally, I had to run into the house and grab my favorite book, my Reader’s Digest North American Wildlife identification book, only to discover that Wooly Bears are completely harmless. Oh well. You will often see Wooly Bears crossing the road in the fall.

Anyway, here is a neat little spider I found today, hanging out on my dill:

They may be creepy and crawly, but they all really do serve a purpose! Well, maybe except cockroaches. I can do without the cockroaches! But, seriously, I don’t use pesticides for the simple fact that they indiscriminately kill bugs, whether they are ‘pests’ or not. When you kill one link in the chain of life, the chain can’t go on.