And it was.
Large caterpillars. And a lot of them.
The size led Patty to believe that they were large moths, reasoning that large caterpillar equals large moth. And we do have large moths about.
While Patty's reasoning was logical the number led me to believe they were tent caterpillars, this being a tent caterpillar outbreak year.
But we were both wrong.
These were bad. Very bad. Bigafy the image below and you'll see several pairs of blue dots (warts) followed by pairs of red dots. That pattern is diagnostic.
These are Gypsy Moth caterpillars. And there was only one thing to do. Thus I donned my work gloves (the hairs can cause an allergic reaction), grabbed a hammer and a hoe (for the ones higher up) and went to work.
I didn't get them all. And the splatter was at times unpleasant. But there are a lot fewer Gypsy Moth caterpillars in our yard then there were this morning.
And that's a good thing.
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