Over the weekend, while my son and daughter and husband were coming back from synagogue and I was walking with my youngest child for a walk…my oldest daughter came running towards me and said she needed her brother’s bug catcher. I immediately inquired for what? She said, we found a really cool caterpillar and we want to keep it. I said, “oh okay”. She darted home (about 1 1/2 blocks away) while I strolled toward my son and husband. Sure enough, my son was so eager to show me his finding. It was a very adorable looking bright yellow furry caterpillar with these Quill-like sharp things poking out of it. He wanted to keep it and watch it grow, etc. I hesitantly agreed. I know NOTHING about this stuff. But, they both were so thrilled to have found this “treasure” I did not want to spoil their fun.

Here is a picture of what it looked like:

Isn’t it so adorable looking? it reminded me of one of those shaggy dogs that you just want to squeeze, because they are so sweet!

It was over our Sabbath and we could not look online what it needed to eat, etc. but we assumed it would be fine with a piece of lettuce, so we stashed a piece in there as well as a stick so when it forms into a chrysalis…It turns out it needs fresh leaves, so after our Sabbath, I plucked one from our huge weed (that looks like a plant, so I keep it! LOL!) and put it inside for the caterpillar. In the beginning, it would crawl along and the kids enjoyed checking on it. The next day, Sunday, my son came running to tell us that it was now in its cocoon…how exciting! I guess we were being good caretakers after all!

Much to our dismay however, we looked tonight online all about how long it needs to be in the cocoon and it turns out it is not going to become a beautiful butterfly as we all hoped and dreamed, but rather into a MOTH! Yuck! I am not a huge bug lover and I don’t particularly care for moths, but the kids want to see it turn into one, so we will hold onto it and it will hopefully become one in around 10 days or so.

It turns out, it is an: AMERICAN DAGGER MOTH:  If you click on the link above, you will see what we found it looking like as a cute caterpillar in image #3. Also, what we all learned that was interesting is that many of these cute fuzzy, yellow or other bright caterpillars are actually harmful or dangerous. As we found out with this one. If you touch it, and those pointy black quill -like things poke you, you will develop red welts and that is not something I think anyone wants! So, it was a relief when I found out that the kids never touched them! I guess my hubby said NOT TO and to put it on a stick only! Phew….

If anyone has anything they want to add, feel free to share in the comments.

Stay safe, take lots of nature pictures, but just be aware and careful. I never realized that they could be harmful, I know to stay away from snakes, those cute small frogs, some are VERY poisonous, never knew though about caterpillars! Good lesson learned for me too!