2 Insect Pictures, and One Description
I have three new bugs (two with pictures!) that I was hoping that someone could identify for me :) All bugs referred two were found in the Albany, New York, area, and all pictures were taken withthin a week or so of the first day of fall. They are all caterpillars.
The first guy was pretty chunky compared to the caterpillars that I normally see around here. He's curled up in the pictures, but he certainly is alive. He's more of a deep brown color than black, with yellow spots lining his body. I can't remember if this is a spike on this tail-end or not, but that's what it looks like from the pictures. As you can tell from the two pics, he's a pretty fleshy caterpillar.
I'm more curious about what this little guy was doing than who he is. He was dangling from a tree by a long and silky thread, and the thread stretched from his "end" to his head, with a few strands on his body. I'm assuming he's building a chrysalis, but this was a week or so before the beginning of fall, and I didn't think that they did that sort of thing now. It didn't look like he was working on anything, just dangling there.
I don't have a picture for the third bug, but my science teacher said that she was playing with her son when she spotted a "blue fuzzy caterpillar with black appendages." She said that the appendages looked like legs, but weren't exactly legs. She flipped through her field guides, but couldn't find a picture matching what she saw. If it sounds familiar to anybody, we would love to know!
Thank you!