junior devil

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File this one under: What the heck?

This time of the year, you should always take your camera on your walks because you never know what you might bump into, but then you might find yourself asking, "What the heck is this?"

It looked something like a hickory horned devil, but it wasn't big enough or the right color. After perusing my caterpillar guides I still did not know what this sweet thing happened to be. It came fully loaded: about as long as an old fashioned Tootsie Roll, it had spikes and horns and spots and stripes. If you look closely enough, you might even see a cup holder.

Finally, I turned to the Internet and discovered that hickory horned devils—the caterpillar stage of the royal walnut moths—go through several instars where they split their old skins and emerge bigger. They also go through color changes black to brown to tan to green and what I had discovered was merely one of the intermediate stages, a devil junior, so to speak.

Royal walnut moth

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