Thursday, March 6, 2014

A Cute Caterpillar


The other day I saw a caterpillar in the forest known as the tobacco hornworm (Manduca sexta).  He was crawling around on leaves and stems.  What I loved about this caterpillar was it's green color and horn.  The horn made it seem as though it were a unicorn caterpillar!  You can spot the difference between the very similar tomato hornworm with this trick: the tobacco hornworm's white stripes are straight like cigarettes, while the tomato hornworm's are v shaped like vines on a tomato plant!    Unlike other caterpillars, this particular species does not go into a cocoon for transformation.  Rather, he buries himself in the ground!  When they are done evolving, they become a beautiful brown moth the color of tobacco!



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