Wednesday, September 7, 2011

fuzzy wuzzy was a wooly bear


Yesterday while on our bike ride, we found some wooly bears. Actually, I am not sure if these are what people call woolly bears (which are the caterpillars for the Isabella Moth (which by the way is not nearly as pretty as it sounds)) or Virginia tiger moth caterpillars. None of these had bands like true wooly bears. In fact, only one of them had two colors at all.


We are going to try raising moths again. I've had great luck raising butterfly caterpillars to flighthood but so far I've failed every attempt with moth caterpillars.


C is not sure about the caterpillars - she was much more sensitive to them and they irritated her skin. The bright yellow/orange one also tended to seem to try one's hand to see if it was food (I held him in my hand for quite awhile after we collected him since I didn't know C had applesauce cups in her bike bag) and he would nose around and seem to bite (which was slightly uncomfortable).

5 comments:

Jamie {See Jamie blog} said...

They irritate my skin sometimes, too, but my daughter loves playing with them.

Sarah said...

Wow, big caterpillars, but strangely cute in a big furry grub kind of way. :)

deb said...

Great photos! Good luck raising them ♥
*hugs*deb

Green Rosettas said...

Looks like the Virginia Tiger Moth. Spilosoma virginica

Green Rosettas said...

Looks a lot like Virginia Tiger moth to me. Spilosoma virginica caterpillars will come in different colors but usually that solid burnt orange-brown color that you have there is a good indicator.