Holly blue. I can never get this close usually. I could almost touch. There were two. They seemed unusually large. Nice to see the dash pattern up close.
I love the eyes. "Bigger than the stomach" has never been more true, in this case.
The general advice is not to handle these as they bite quite hard but in my defence I'm not very good at taking advice
Looks like he didn't give you much choice!
She, the big tail spike is the ovipositor, but no she didn't. She was on the road and needed to be moved but crawled up my arm after I tried to pick her up with a stick.
If you can keep your head, while those around you are losing theirs, you may not have grasped the seriousness of the situation.
I'm really happy to see the monarch caterpillars; I spotted six between my swamp milkweed plants and my butterfly weed, plus there were two more in the holding beds on another swamp milkweed.
New England, USA
Metacomet soil with hints of Woodbridge and Pillsbury
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And...a fantastic butterfly @floralies 😎