More Caterpillars!

Yikes! Just in time for Halloween!
3 caterpillars in this picture: Can you see the tiny baby one in the middle?

We found more caterpillars at Grandma and Grandpa's house this weekend... Grandma Lana encouraged us to take as many as we could find home, since they were eating her passion vine. These hairy insects turned out to be Gulf Fritillary Agraulis vanillae caterpillars, and the passion vine is their host plant. We found 20+ caterpillars and 4 live cocoons (chrysallis)! Now, let's see if we'll have more success observing these guys grow than we did with our attempt to raise monarchs. They are currently hanging up outside in

our "lady bug lantern" (from Insectlore), and they are not as ugly when viewed from a distance--Sorry if I scared anyone with the above close-up shots... I just love playing with the zoom on our camera.