 
I left ONE volunteer milkweed plant at the edge of the garden just for fun, to see what would become of it. It turned into caterpillar food. This is what I saw stepping out of the car after work on Tuesday. I haven’t gotten around to identifying these lovelies. Anybody got a name for them? Want to make one up? Be creative. I guess Id best get back out there and be sure this herd has not wandered over toward the tomato plants. As you see, they leave nothing but the stringy main veins when they set upon a leaf. (I’d love to have a time-lapse sequence of this one leaf over a period of a couple of hours)
I think they are milkweed tussock moths.
Bingo. Tussock moth caterpillars was where I was going to start looking. This is definitely the character. AKA milkweed Tiger Moth, it also feeds on dogbane which we have in abundance around the edge of the pasture. Thanks, John
http://images.google.com/images?client=safari&rls=en-us&q=milkweed%20tussock%20moths&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&um=1&sa=N&tab=wi
Dang. They were identified. I was going to call them Halloween Horror Worms!
Not so Horror 🙂 They look sweet 🙂
Ack!! That doesn’t even look real! They look like some kid’s art project using pipe cleaners. Geez – I may have nightmares!
Does anyone know if they are poissonous?