Most caterpillars must eat constantly. The plants found east of the Mississippi are abundant in spring and summer. One drawback of living in some eastern states is the coming of autumn, when many deciduous plants lose their leaves or die back, and the cold winters of the northern part of the range. Lack of food or a cold winter might cause a pupa to go into diapause, or a state of suspended animation, until conditions improve.
Nymphalidae: Black Swallowtail
The mature black swallowtail caterpillar is a green caterpillar with gold and black markings and horns on its head. It hatches from a yellowish oval egg and eats parsley, parsnips and other plants in the carrot family and grows to about .20 inches long. Its range extends down from southern Quebec and Ontario south through Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, New York, west towards Wisconsin, down through the southern states to Florida. It can be seen from June onward in open fields, farmlands, gardens, and wet meadows.
Nymphalidae: Spicebush Swallowtail
The mature spicebush swallowtail caterpillar is green, and grows to .22 inches long. It’s humpbacked, with eyespots on the hump. It eats spicebush, sassafras, and prickly ash and can be found in deciduous woodlands, swamps and pine barrens, parks, yards, fields and roadsides from June and July and then from August to October, and year round along the gulf of Mexico. The spicebush swallowtail is found from southern Ontario and Quebec, and all states east of the Mississippi save Maine, including New England, the mid-Atlantic states and the Southern states and west to Louisiana, north to Arkansas, Missouri, Iowa and Minnesota.
Polygonia
The comma butterfly’s spiny black and white caterpillar lives in moist open woodlands and eats nettle and hops. It grows to .16 inches and is found in wet meadows, the edges of waterways, woodlands and disturbed places from northern Quebec down to Ontario, through New Brunswick, down to Maine and New England, the mid-Atlantic Sates, and down into Georgia. It can be looked for in June, then again in August and September over the east. The question mark caterpillar also has a bristly caterpillar, with white spotting and red and orange bristles. It also grows to .18 inches and feeds on elm, hops and nettles. It can be found in forests, flood plains, roadsides, parks and yards. It has much of the same range as the comma, but goes south into Florida. It can be found in early summer and then at the end of summer.
Saturnidae
The caterpillar of the promethea moth is considered a source of silk in the American silk industry. The caterpillar is robust with small spots and small red tubercles on the head. It grows to .24 inches long and can be found in forests from lower Quebec, south to Florida and all the United States to the Mississippi from early June onward. The promethea caterpillar eats spicebush, sassafras, tulip tree and wild cherry. The cocoon is always suspended on the food plant. The beautiful pale green luna moth has a fat green caterpillar with bristles and knobs that grows to .26 inches. It eats sweet gum, hickory, walnut and persimmon and is even active in its cocoon, which it spins on the ground. Its range goes a bit more west than the promethea moth. It can be found from May to fall.
Resources
- Caterpillars of Eastern North America; David L. Wagner; 2005.
- Butterflies and Moths; Robert T. Mitchell; 1964
- Eyewitness Handbooks;Butterflies and Moths; David Carter; 1992
