I left ONE volunteer milkweed plant at the edge of the garden just for fun, to see what would become of it. It turned into caterpillar food. This is what I saw stepping out of the car after work on Tuesday. I haven’t gotten around to identifying these lovelies. Anybody got a name for them? Want to make one up? Be creative. I guess Id best get back out there and be sure this herd has not wandered over toward the tomato plants. As you see, they leave nothing but the stringy main veins when they set upon a leaf. (I’d love to have a time-lapse sequence of this one leaf over a period of a couple of hours)
Stumble it!
6 responses so far ↓
1 John // Aug 14, 2008 at 9:57 am
I think they are milkweed tussock moths.
2 fred // Aug 14, 2008 at 10:47 am
Bingo. Tussock moth caterpillars was where I was going to start looking. This is definitely the character. AKA milkweed Tiger Moth, it also feeds on dogbane which we have in abundance around the edge of the pasture. Thanks, John
http://images.google.com/images?client=safari&rls=en-us&q=milkweed%20tussock%20moths&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&um=1&sa=N&tab=wi
3 Mike Nichols // Aug 14, 2008 at 12:33 pm
Dang. They were identified. I was going to call them Halloween Horror Worms!
4 Ewa // Aug 15, 2008 at 8:00 am
Not so Horror
They look sweet 
5 dog_geek // Aug 15, 2008 at 1:57 pm
Ack!! That doesn’t even look real! They look like some kid’s art project using pipe cleaners. Geez - I may have nightmares!
6 Pat // Aug 27, 2008 at 7:39 pm
Does anyone know if they are poissonous?
Leave a Comment