One of the coolest catepillars I've seen (other than in books). I had my camera in super-macro mode, and I think I must have touched the little guy with the lens, because, in my viewfinder, I see this thing that was stretched out along a branch a couple of seconds ago, suddenly whip around to kill me in the next. Well, I don't know if it was trying to kill me, but it was VERY aggressive. It would whip around to the left, then freeze, holding onto the branch with its rear "feet." It would stare at me for a little bit, then whip around to the right. It was quick and a little intimidating.

The color and pattern are obvious. The length might have been somewhere between 1-1/2 and 2 inches (leaning closer to 2 inches). I gave a detail of the "face" (the inset picture in the upper right-hand corner). That's when he had finished whipping around and was giving me the "evil eye." It had 4 pairs of legs located midway down its body, a pair in the rear, and what looked like 2 pairs in the front, which were smaller than the others (probably used more for holding and grasping, than for clinging). Skin was waxy and smooth, with no hair that I could detect.

I'm not sure what kind of a bush-thing it was on. I'm sure that would help, but I'm not a plant guy. I was planning on monitoring it, hoping it would make a little cocoon nearby for the winter, and then see what emerged from it in the spring. But, a rude little hail storm took care of that by pounding the bush into a pulp and possibly killing the catepillar. I haven't seen it since before the storm...