Little Green Caterpillar

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Ken Ramos
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Little Green Caterpillar

Post by Ken Ramos »

Thought I would get out early this morning and do some shooting while the weather was cool. I found this little guy on a Tulip Poplar leaf. It appears as though he has already spun a little silk. :D

Image
Canon EOS 20D
Manual exposure
1/250 sec. @ f/16 ISO 100
430EX Canon Speedlite
EF-S 60mm f/2.8 Canon Macro USM
Early morning/in shade/on Tulip Poplar leaf
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Kenneth Ramos
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Beetleman
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Post by Beetleman »

Very nice shot Ken. This might be a good subject to follow up on as he changes.
Take Nothing but Pictures--Leave Nothing but Footprints.
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rjlittlefield
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Post by rjlittlefield »

This appears to be a half-grown Swallowtail larva, getting ready to molt. Most of the time they just wander around eating, no silk. But when it's time to shed their skins and head capsules, they spin a little mat and hunker down while new structures form inside the old ones. That part takes a couple of days. But you'll have to be paying close attention to catch it with its skin half off -- the actual shedding takes only a couple of minutes.

--Rik

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Ken Ramos
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Post by Ken Ramos »

Thanks guys :D
I will probably miss the change in the little fellow. I left him were he was. I thought maybe a bird might pick him off but he blends in quite well on that leaf. I just found him quite by accident. At first I thought he was bird poop! :lol:
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Kenneth Ramos
Rutherfordton, North Carolina
Kens Microscopy
Reposts of my images within the galleries are welcome, as are constructive critical critiques.

rjlittlefield
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Post by rjlittlefield »

Ken Ramos wrote:At first I thought he was bird poop! :lol:
You and everybody else! It's classic swallowtail camouflage. When they're freshly hatched (a few mm long), these caterpillars are very dark, almost black, with a light "saddle" mark in the middle of their back. They look like a little speck of bird poop. With each molt, the base color gets lighter. After a while, the larger ones of some species can do something like a snake imitation with those "eyespots" on the thorax and a defense organ called an "osmaterium" that suddenly juts out from just behind the head. In other species, the color pattern shifts to circular stripes of yellow/green and black, but the osmaterium is still there. (See here for a picture of the latter.)

When I used to raise these critters, I got pretty attuned to what they look like, and it was fun to go find them in the wild. Sometimes I found caterpillars. More often it was bird poop. :?

--Rik

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