It happened in an instant. I was tidying up the living room when I noticed what looked like a small green leaf on the floor, shaped almost too perfectly to be real. It had tiny brown spots and odd little bumps that looked like plastic decorations. I thought a plant had shed something unusual, so I bent down to scoop it up.
That moment of ordinary curiosity nearly became a very painful mistake.
As I reached for it, something made me pause. Maybe it was the strange shape, or the way the “leaf” seemed to sit on the floor with more weight than a real leaf would. I leaned closer, squinting. And that’s when I saw it: the tiniest movement. The “leaf” wasn’t a leaf at all.
It was a saddleback caterpillar.Continue reading…