Weird Caterpillar Stories: Tell Yours Here

[skates4marty]

On Saturday, I hopped on my bike and rode 2 miles to work at a baseball concession stand. When I got off my bike, I saw a new fourth instar on my bike frame. (His face was pale, so he had just shed.) I do use my bike, with panniers on the back, to transport milkweed, so he must have crawled off as a third, hung out somewhere on my frame, or maybe on the pannier in the house, and had just started to look for food. I had one dried milkweed leaf in the bottom of the pannier. He was not impressed. I explained to the other parent-workers why I had to go home.

[Mona Miller]

How about driving down a major highway and you notice that you have a tiny caterpillar crawling up your pants. I was trying to keep an eye on the caterpillar and the traffic, too. I can just see me getting pulled over and trying to explain to the officer that I was trying to pay attention to the caterpillar.

[Monarch MaMa]

I pinned a ready-to-eclose chrysalis on my car visor so I could keep an eye on it. This was at the beginning of the eclosing season and I wanted to supervise its hanging & drying then release it on that sunny day in the garden at work. After traveling 1 mile on a bumpy dirt road then 1 mile on pavement, I looked up and saw it emerging. I think being shook up on the washboard-gravel road stimulated it. I'm just glad I had the road to myself so I couldn't rear-end anyone!

A 'dad' on the soccer team mentioned that he saw me on the side of a common thoroughfare. I told him I was collecting food as well as caterpillars for the monarchs I intended to tag for the migration studies at Univ of Kansas. (I use this line a lot - sounding scientific makes me sound less obsessed & loony but the latter is more true than the former ) He mentioned that another 'soccer mom' tags woodcocks & pointed to a lady nearby. I asked her about the birds, talked about my butters. At the next soccer game I brought a tagged monarch to release & gave them a cat. They're anticipating it's eclosing shortly and I get updates at each soccer event.

We should all get a medal for our efforts!

[BlizzardNole]

I used my ladder to change a lightbulb in the ceiling of my garage and when I was done and had just hung it back on its hook, I saw a chrysalis attached to the side. I had laid that wooden ladder on its side a few feet from my enclosure to keep the kids from banging into it with scooters and bikes, and one of the cats musta gotten out when I was cleaning.

That ladder got swung all around, opened and closed (it closes with a hard BANG) and then hung back up. That chrysalis was fortunately well anchored! I moved it right away.

[dandjtaylor]

Back during an August "census" in my shed, I had just opened the door and was preparing to clean and count when a beauty flew off the bench where I do all of my work with the cats. I figured she had roosted in there for the night, but as I was collecting a spool of thread to tie off a chrysalis that had formed on the side of a container, I spotted it, right in front of me the whole time, where I work with the cats three times a day...the empty chrysalis! It had been there for a week without me even seeing it! I figure it was a cat that had escaped or was accidentally tossed out with the old milkweed and had made it to pupation right there where I do all of the work!

Says alot about those bright green and gold chrysalis, huh?

[sbannister]

A few weeks ago I saw a Monarch and a Gulf Fritillary flapping in the window of my shed - they wanted out! Of course, I opened the shed door and gently shooed them outside. I thought that they got in there trying to roost for the night while the door was open, but I found the empty Gulf frittilary chrysalis in there, so the cats must have crawled in there under the door (there's plenty enough room for them to do that). Anyway, I always check in there now because I would hate for them to starve in there!

[mich]

One of todays page one posts referenced a "strange places to pupate" thread; I suspect this may be it. Wonderful little surprises! This past summer my husband called me in to catch a butterfly in the family room while he held the dogs back. Apparently one little Houdini escaped his aquarium and pupated on the fireplace screen. I guess that doesn't say much about my housekeeping skills...

[lib66laur]

Oh, thank you so much!! I'll add my other post here as well:

My husband noticed a chrysalis hanging from the underside of a lawn chair that had been propped on its side in the garage. I'm not used to those kinds of surprises! All I can guess is that it pupated when it was nice last weekend (or before) meaning it had a ride around the yard as I kept moving my chair to be in the sun. I must have walked by that chair dozens of times and never noticed! It eclosed yesterday, healthy and beautiful as did three more that I reared. I call that a good day!!

On a side note: The warm weather we had that previous weekend resulted in swarming ants coming out inside the garage several times. We shot them with Raid which made me extremely concerned for my stowaway on the lawn chair...

[Schmetterling]

I found the thread I was referencing. It was under my monarch experience, "strange places for pupa to pupate."

[James Price]

I've had them pupate all over the house and out on the deck, but my favorite weird caterpillar was this one, which for some reason ate only the blossoms of swamp milkweed – and turned rather decidedly pink.

[Mona Miller]

Cloudless Sulphur caterpillars change colors, too. If they eat the yellow blooms, they are yellow. If they eat the green leaves, they are green. I've never seen a pink monarch caterpillar--cool.