Caterpillar Poop

Two words I never thought I'd use in a title: caterpillar poop.

This week has been the week of the tent caterpillars. They're all over. Our driveway, the sidewalks, the streets have caterpillars heading for wherever caterpillars head. The Washington Post has been on the story, here. Anyway, the kids in second grade have been very interested. Until yesterday and today, when we had a lot of rain, they've been examining the caterpillars on the playground, and walking Sarah home from school (literally around the corner) has taken a long time as she stops to watch the caterpillars, get them to crawl onto sticks, take them to places where they can find food, etc. There are several tents in our yard's big trees. These are apparently Easterrn Tent Caterpillars.

Things learned from my daughter which I may have known at her age but didn't recall:

If you squish one, green stuff comes out.

If you watch them eat, they get fatter as the food goes in.

Their poop is small and, I believe she said, triangular.

She asked if I'd ever seen caterpillar poop. I've done a lot in my 60 years, but I cannot recall ever looking at caterpillar poop.

"You didn't know caterpillars poop?"

"Well, they eat, they eat our leaves for example, and everything that eats poops, but I'd never actually thought about it..."

"Plants eat but they don't poop."

"Well, yes, but plants eat liquids from the soil, but I mean every animal that eats has to poop. I just don't think I ever thought about it with caterpillars."

And I hadn't. Not even with the really big caterpillar we videoed a while back.

Anyway, this was caterpillar week.

UPDATE: I started this post on Wednesday night and finished it Friday so the time stamp is a little misleading. The two days of rain were Thursday and Friday.