Viceroy Butterfly Caterpillar

Finding something by chance and then later making a connection to something that is already known is always a satisfying experience.

I took a picture of a caterpillar yesterday which I found while standing on the graveled shoulder of an old country roadside taking photos of Common Wood-Nymph butterflies. It wasn't a beautiful looking creature but the simple fact that it was a caterpillar attracted me to it immediately.

I have recently bought a new field guide; Caterpillars of Eastern North America, by David L. Wagner, and since then I have been enjoying searching through the wonderful colour pictures included in the book identifying a few caterpillar photographs I had taken and stored in my picture files since 2000. To find a new caterpillar to research just added to my fun.

And so I anticipated the enjoyment of having one more new species to identify. I was very pleased when I easily found a match for my new caterpillar picture: a Viceroy Butterfly Caterpillar Limentis archippus