As thunder rumbled through dark gray clouds, I stayed outside to finish some yard work this afternoon. I was pulling weeds here and there, and finally decided to tackle a mess of vines that were overtaking some variegated privets and sunflowers.
I checked as best I could to be sure nothing was poisonous, and started pulling. Suddenly I noticed a tiny furry caterpillar curled up around the stem of one of the vines. He didn't move when I touched him with the tip of my gloves, nor when I tried to coax him off the vine with a leaf. I put the vine aside with all the others I had pulled, and looked where I had been weeding...
Aren't they beautiful (the colors don't show up quite as well on blogger as they do in the original picture)? I have no idea what they are, or what they had been eating. Were they eating the vine? If so, what kind of vine is it? They were definitely on the privet now, and one was munching away on a leaf, but he stopped before too long. Not to his liking?
The rain finally started after I got a few pictures. I draped some remnants of the vine (I think - there were several vines there) over the privet branch, but still am not sure exactly what they were eating. Here is a picture of some of the other plants and vines growing in the area (I'm not sure what they all are - there's one more I don't have a picture of, a vine with fluffly, feathery blue flowers)...
A long search on-line hasn't turned up many clues, except that they could possibly be caterpillars of the Io moth. There was a female Io moth in our yard not too long ago...
Could anyone offer other ideas? I'm especially concerned that I may have pulled away their food, and would love to know what I need to bring over to their branch...
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