One of my favorite comedians, George Carlin, once said, “The caterpillar does all the work, but the butterfly gets all the publicity.”

They crawl, they eat, they eat some more, and then they curl up and metamorphosize-changing into a chrysalis or cocoon. As a matter of fact, caterpillars only have one job-to eat as much as possible in the time they have. They eat so much they may increase their body mass by 1000 times, or more!

Caterpillars are the larval stage of butterflies and moths. Most of these winged insects go through what’s called complete metamorphosis. They start as an egg, hatch into a larva (caterpillar), then go into a dormant stage called a pupa (cocoon or chrysalis), then eventually emerge out of the pupa stage as adults, and fly away. It’s the larval/caterpillar stage that eats the most, although many adult butterflies and moths also feed, primarily sipping nectar from flowers, tree sap and other plants. We may be familiar with one stage of the insect, but not the other.

Many of us easily recognize the beautiful black and orange colors of the adult Monarch butterfly, a welcome visitor to our backyard gardens and meadows, which are well-known for their long migration south to Mexico. But we may not be as familiar with its caterpillar, which feeds primarily on members of the milkweed family, and is really cool-looking in its own way! Or, the spectacular, 7”, lime-colored adult Luna moth, with its long tails on its hind wings, but have never laid eyes on the chunky green caterpillar! However, in some species it’s the caterpillar we know, and not so much the adult.

For example, do you know what kind of moth the “famous” Wooly Bear caterpillar turns in to? Answer: The cool-looking, orange Isabella Tiger Moth!  How about a caterpillar that’s responsible for the loss of thousands of acres of hardwood trees? As a matter of fact, we may not even identify this small fuzzy caterpillar with blue and red markings, but when they get together, I bet many of you have seen the devastation they can cause. Answer: the Gypsy Moth. Usually hatching by the millions, an outbreak of these small critters can completely defoliate (eat the leaves) huge sections of trees, which can negatively impact a forest ecosystem, and possibly lose millions of dollars in commercial value. They start gorging themselves in the spring when the leaves are just emerging and the trees are most vulnerable. The adult is a small, rather plain brown, or tan moth and doesn’t even eat!

If there’s one group of critters that has stood out more than any other animals to me around our home this year, it has to be the caterpillars! I’m not sure if it’s because we’ve spent more time at home due to Covid-19, or that all of our plantings and mini-land management projects, like the meadow restoration, are now creating more suitable habitat for these crawlers, and the flying adults. It’s most likely both! But, we have noticed more birds around this year too. Again, isolation at home can make you more aware of your natural surroundings, but usually when bird populations increase, it’s because their food supply (and nesting habitat) has increased as well. Everything in nature is connected! But when I did the math, if I ate as much as a caterpillar eats, as to increase my body mass by 1000x, I would be about 93 tons, or almost the size of a Boeing 747 jet! Man that’s a lot of leaves!