Dark maroon caterpillar with yellow stripe on side
The girls found this caterpillar somewhere in the yard on June 25, 2016. It was such a dark maroon color that it looked almost black, with a yellow stripe down each side and a velvety sheen to its skin.
It was about an inch long. Here it is on the tip of my thumb, for scale:
These next couple of pictures were illuminated more brightly to bring out details (which is why the white paper it is sitting on is overexposed):
So, this caterpillar has the general build that I expect from the caterpillar of one of the owlet moths. It actually looks really close to some of the caterpillars of the Eupsilia genus, but unfortunately the ones it looks the most like are also the ones that haven’t been identified to species.
Anyway, their relatives are mostly the various varieties of cutworms, so this one is probably a cutworm, too. Which means it is a garden pest, and so the best thing to do with it is feed it to the chickens.
One of Sam’s bantam roosters. She named him Proud, because he clearly is. Every time she opened up the coop in the morning, he’d charge out looking for a fight, and then strut around crowing when no one would fight him.
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The chitin on the face always makes me think of a mask.