MONKEY SLUG
CATERPILLAR OF THE WEEK: The aptly named Monkey Slug Caterpillar - Phobetron pithecium. With no legs to speak of, a dozen waving tentacles, a thick mat of hair, and ample sharp spines, there really is nothing else quite like a Monkey Slug. This is one of over a dozen species of legless slug caterpillars native here in New England each fall. They are one of our favorite groups to display, because they challenge peoples preconceptions of what a caterpillar is or can be. We agre
WAVY-LINED HETEROCAMPA
CATERPILLAR OF THE WEEK: Eat the leaf, live on the leaf, BECOME THE LEAF. Heterocampa biundata, the Wavy-lined Prominent, is hidden in plain sight against a fall season hickory or maple blade. -- "The long summer has taken its toll on a once lush New England leafscape. What was initially strong, green, and uniform is now decorated with burned, withered edges, pot-marked with spots of fungus and decay, speckled with the galls of tiny insects, and fragmented after a sustained o
