Most of us remember caterpillars from our childhood – slow moving creatures, munching on a leaf or walking its seemingly multi-legged gait across a sidewalk or along a plant stem, occasionally raising its head up and showing us its big eyes. Only six of those “legs” are real legs – the others just help the caterpillar hold on. We also might remember its fuzzy cover or perhaps the long, pointed structure at the end of its body that we feared might be a stinger. It rarely is. Perhaps you also took the caterpillar home in a jar stuffed with the leaves it was eating to watch it transform into a butterfly or moth. Those were important days and lessons learned across the ages – perhaps your first encounter with Nature.
Then came the realization of the beauty and diversity of caterpillars – the fine black-and-\yellow striped body of the Monarch caterpillar, the large green body of the tomato hornworm – bare except for that prominent pointed thing emerging from its rear end. It was not a stinger, but perhaps it made you think twice about picking up the emerald creature.