One of my lupines is hosting a group of caterpillars. I looked up their collective noun, and it’s an army of caterpillars (which seemed ominous). I just have a few. No army. But since I like to have butterflies and moths around, and since Wikipedia says hairy caterpillars turn into butterflies and moths, I thought the caterpillars could have a few plants.
See those three pairs of front legs? They eventually become butterfly or moth legs, six legs total. The back legs that look like little suction pads will drop off during metamorphosis. And that hair? It’s designed to give you contact dermatitis.
The caterpillar has a surprising number of tricks. It eats very efficiently.
Here it has its mandibles spread and out of the way as it uses the spinneret in its mouth to make silk.
and here it has made a nice pile of frass. Which is a very polite and precise word for caterpillar poop.
frass –noun
insect excrement
[Origin: 1850–55; orig., the refuse and excrement of boring or leaf-eating insects < G Frass insect damage, corrosion, n. from base of fressen to eat (of animals); see fress, fret1
]
| Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1) Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2006. |
If you aren’t impressed by their eating, spinning silk or pooping, consider this: Humans have 629 muscles and a skeleton.
A caterpillar has 4,000 muscles
and is far more coordinated than I could ever dream of.
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