Found this big little critter crawling around outside our door this evening. (See “Big Brown Moth” for the other side of the metamorphosis!)
Shot with: 6 mega-pixel Canon SD600
Shared with: Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License
http://www.movingtofreedom.org/2008/08/15/big-green-caterpillar/
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37 Comments
Did you ever discover what type of caterpillar this was? Today, we discovered the exact same type, near our home, and cannot find a suitable match in any online references.
Thanks,
Jim
24 September 2008 at 4:12 pm
Hi, Jim. My wife thinks it is the first one on this page:
http://www.npwrc.usgs.gov/resource/insects/cateast/silkworm.htm
A Polyphemus Moth (Antheraea polyphemus):
http://www.npwrc.usgs.gov/resource/insects/cateast/anthpoly.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antheraea_polyphemus
25 September 2008 at 5:03 am
Just found one in Blaine, Minnesota
26 July 2010 at 1:42 pm
Found one in Monticello, MN
28 July 2010 at 6:29 pm
Found one in Dundas, MN
29 July 2010 at 3:56 pm
Found 2 on my deck in White Bear Lake
29 July 2010 at 5:53 pm
Found one yesterday climbing on our maple tree in upstate NY.
30 July 2010 at 10:13 pm
The Big Green Caterpillars are on the move!
30 July 2010 at 11:38 pm
Found one in Pickerington Ohio
1 August 2010 at 4:42 pm
I found one today it was insane i thought it was an alien
4 August 2010 at 1:11 am
Kids found one today in Pittsfield, MA
4 August 2010 at 12:42 pm
Add Orchard Park, NY to the list. My son and I rescued this slowpoke from our hot driveway today. :)
4 August 2010 at 1:37 pm
I found one in Northampton MA. Coolest thing ever.
4 August 2010 at 5:52 pm
We have found 2 of them and we brought them in and they have formed cacoons. We want to watch and learn, then release!
Norwalk, OH
5 August 2010 at 11:36 pm
They’ll be in their cocoons all winter. I wonder if the warmer temperature of the indoors will affect things? But good luck — it was great seeing one emerge!
6 August 2010 at 6:42 am
We found one today in St Francis, MN. I’ve never seen anything like it! Is there a particular reason we’re seeing them?
6 August 2010 at 6:32 pm
We just found one in St. Cloud MN. Showed it to the roommates and no one has ever seen a caterpillar so big. What is it going to turn into? Are they actually from the area?
7 August 2010 at 4:31 pm
Found one in Fort Wayne, IN! His name is Herman Lucifer Fatback!
7 August 2010 at 9:05 pm
Just saw one in Neenah, WI.
8 August 2010 at 1:54 am
Hi, Tina. The link to “Big Brown Moth” above the pictures will show you what ours turned into. In an earlier comment on this page and on that other page, there are some links for more about these guys.
8 August 2010 at 10:06 am
Thanks for all the sightings, everyone. I feel like I’m running Big Green Caterpillar Central here. :-)
8 August 2010 at 10:07 am
We were shocked to find such an interesting find in Massillon, Ohio. We picked him up and put him in a jar for the kids to look at planning to release him when they went to bed. When we picked up the jar filled with leaves and bark, we discovered our new friend spinning a cocoon! Guess he likes it there. We’ll just wait and see what happens next. To be continued…
13 August 2010 at 9:05 pm
found one today in Wisconsin!!! thanks for the great pics!!
14 August 2010 at 3:32 pm
Found one in Saint Cloud, MN.
16 August 2010 at 8:15 am
These are lunar moths. They are very beautiful (according to another moth) when in their flying mode. We found one after our storms in Foley.
18 August 2010 at 12:52 pm
Found one in an Oak tree in Sodus, NY (upstate). It was huge! the length of my middle finger and as thick as 2 fingers.
18 August 2010 at 9:13 pm
I Googled in “Big Green Caterpillar” to see if we could identify what our cat brought to the door last night…just like she does with mice! They are huge! We found several of them crawling on our Engleman ivy plant on the side of our house…about a half dozen that we can see. They are munching the leaves like crazy and destroying our vine. We’re not sure what to do about them! Very interesting to hear of other “sightings” on this website. We’re in Valley City, ND, by the way.
19 August 2010 at 4:40 pm
Brad: I don’t think ours was a Luna Moth. If you look at the related “Big Brown Moth” post, it looks quite different than:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Actias_luna
In caterpillar form they look similar.
19 August 2010 at 5:11 pm
I found one crawling up my farm house, I am sure it isnt the same as a luna moth as there are fine hairs coming out of the yellow/orange dots along side of it, plus it has thin white lines along int underside pus tiny red 1mil lines beside those.. hard to explain. it also has a purple line on each side of its rear…
brown head with lil brownish feet.
20 August 2010 at 4:54 pm
found one in wilmington, illinois while i was at the beach in lake will. the thing was fatter than my fingers. never seen anything like it so i was eager to show it off….then i hid it in some bush far from the beach…..what a great find that day!!!
22 August 2010 at 12:25 am
Found one on my driveway in Louisville, KY today.
23 August 2010 at 4:55 pm
Found one in Park Rapids MN
25 August 2010 at 10:56 am
I have lived in the country my whole life and never seen something like this. I live in Bluffton, IN. Unfortually my dog stepped on it so I don’t think it will make it. That is really too bad because it was really amazing.
25 August 2010 at 9:26 pm
Just found one in Bloomington, IL! This is now one of the first Google image results for “large green caterpillar”, BTW!
27 August 2010 at 4:58 pm
We just found one on our patio table.
We could not believe how big it is!
By the way we found it in Golden Valley, mn :)
27 August 2010 at 6:29 pm
Excellent. The invasion is proceeding according to plan. Soon, all will bow to our new big green caterpillar overlords.
28 August 2010 at 6:44 am
Found one in our backyard in upstate South Carolina.
31 August 2010 at 4:17 pm