Buddy is now getting ready to enter the pupal stage, and is hanging on the side of a mesh cage by a silk thread. Buddy was not very happy with the photo shoot, and did a lot of wiggling to protest: ***

It’s really fun to watch the caterpillar eat dill – they eat all day long, and poop out these perfectly spherical little poops that smell like dill. I was hoping to catch Buddy eating on video, because it’s quite mesmerizing (see this photoI took years ago, before the wonders of YouTube). But alas, when I […]

*** ***

Astonishingly, Buddy grew approximately 33% in 24 hours. I barely recognized him, but luckily I only have one caterpillar and he was sitting on the same sprig of dill (which appears to be shrinking). ***

It’s been a few years since I’ve raised wild caterpillars, and I thought I had retired from caterpillar wrangling for good. But a spur-of-the-moment trip to the Walden Pond wilderness united me with this young buck of a caterpillar named Buddy: Buddy was just a tiny little caterpillar, probably the runt of the litter. But […]