Topic: A new one on me: a sci-fi type caterpillar

[GrannieAnnie]

http://www.flickr.com/search/groups/?q=butternut&w=39535669%40N00&m=pool
A neighbor who also has a veg. garden carried a leaf over to me to identify what looked like a small cotton floor-mop of tangled threads, but it walked! None of the neighbors could identify it but eventually she found the pix on line: a "Butternut wooly" and member of the sawfly family so considered a bad actor. I was not happy to hear about it since I've just had a good butternut squash year here for the first time!  Have any of you had contact with this strange one, at least strange to us in Delaware?

[thifasmom]

very similar to the mealybug destroyer larva i found twice this year. the picture is in this blog entry.

http://kellasvegeplotandothermusings.blogspot.com/2009/08/it-feels-so-good-to-get-my-groove-back.html

[norfolklass]

he's fabulous!!!
hope he doesn't invite all his mates over to start munching on your crops though

[GrannieAnnie]

he's fabulous!!!
hope he doesn't invite all his mates over to start munching on your crops though

As more neighbors pick up veg. gardening he and his mates may become a common sight.
That's not progress.