So the winner for today’s photography challenge is the little white hairy caterpillar that was crawling around the bottom of the bug repellent (that had obviously been knocked over).

Since we live next to a creek, and probably less than a block from some undeveloped areas we usually get caterpillars coming through the yard on a daily basis. Not many of them make it up to the table, but some do and usually I help them on their way.

So I’m not an entomologist by any stretch of the imagination, so if it is an unknown bug I will either turn to google or ask my cousin (who is an entomologist). Well today I decided to try my hand at google to figure out what type of moth or butterfly this was going to be changing into.

It turns out that this probably a fall webworm caterpillar. So this little guy at one point was up in a tree in a “web” with hundreds of it’s relatives. The caterpillar stage for this particular species lasts about four to six weeks–which means that by September it is going to try to find an area around a tree to spin it’s cocoon for the winter.

While their webs/nests are unsightly in the trees, they’re not killing the tree and I’m sure that there are industrious birds trying to figure out how to get through the webbing and feast on all those little caterpillars.

I might have to try and spot some of the tent caterpillars and see if I can get a picture for comparison.