Beautiful. Thanks so much for sharing as I've never seen the caterpillar before
Thanks Moni by: Ardie
Thank you for the information. Someone else had suggested Luna to me but I'd only seen them green. I was able to keep one over winter once and had the joy of seeing it emerge. I released it as soon as it was dry.
Luna moth caterpillar by: Moni
Ardie
With your great photo of the caterpillar showing the head and rear, it is a Luna moth caterpillar. The Luna and Polyphemus caterpillars can look similar at this late stage of development, but seeing the rear markings helps with the ID.
This caterpillar is the orangish brown color because it is about to pupate. It is heading to make a cocoon in leaf litter.
The beautiful moths do not eat. The caterpillars eat foliage of a wide variety of trees including birch, persimmon, sweet gum, hickory, walnut, and pecans. The caterpillars eat enough to keep the moth flying for its short life to reproduce.
This insect is found over eastern North America from Nova Scotia west Saskatchewan and to eastern N Dakota south to eastern TX then east.
Here are photos of the adult moth and other stages of the caterpillar - http://bugguide.net/node/view/562/bgimage
