Back in mid-September I spotted this caterpillar feeding on the flowers of pitcher sage – a beautiful tall blue flower – in one of our prairies. I’m pretty sure I’ve photographed this same kind of caterpillar before but don’t know what it is? Tiger moth larva maybe?
Sometimes I find surprises in my photographs as I’m looking through them after the fact. Such was the case with this one. While I was concentrating on the big fuzzy caterpillar (and fighting the gentle breeze that kept swinging it away from me…) I didn’t notice the little inchworm and ant on the next flower over. Fortunately, they don’t detract from the photo – in fact I like them there because it helps portray the diversity of life in prairies – even on a single flower cluster!
Lovely photo! The larger one looks like a Salt Marsh Moth caterpillar.
http://bugguide.net/node/view/3242
It sure looks right! Thanks. I’d tried it out in my caterpillar field guide but hadn’t done a bugguide search yet – should have started there…