Thanks, David. I did find a similar appearing larvae on a Milkweed thread at www.monarchwatch.org and they referred to it as a Tussock Milkweed Moth larvae but the tufts and dots were not exactly the same. YOUR photo, on the other hand, IS exact. I'm wanting to keep him in a container until I find out what he is, so I'll keep tempting him with various greenery. Thanks for the very prompt reply.

As an add-on, after your suggestion that it is a Tussock Moth, I entered that in the search box and came up with another photo which is definitely the same, from Washington state. Now we sure don't have any Douglas Fir in mid-Canada. Is this a creature I should be concerned about? Does it turn into anything gorgeous? Or evil? I'll go back to the Bugguide main page and investigate a bit further.

Freda

while we were away for a couple of days the larva had eaten most of the tamarack sprig which I had put in the container for him and had encased himself in a gauzey kind of coccoon. Two days later there appeared two little barrel-shaped 'things' on the floor of the container. I'm very curious to see what is going to emerge from either of these.

Can you provide some images of these coccoons and "things". It would make a great series and I'm also very interested to see what comes out. nice work!