Orange Dog Caterpillar

I recently came across a bizarre looking caterpillar - it looked like bird poo - while looking on a wafer ash (Ptelea trifoliate) for the white, frothy "egg plugs" of the two-marked treehopper (Enchenopa binotata) and admiring some heavy potato leafhopper (Empoasca fabae) damage.  I learned the bizarre looking caterpillar has an appropriately bizarre sounding common name:  the orange dog.

The orange dog (sometimes called orange puppy) caterpillar is the larval stage of the eastern giant swallowtail butterfly (Papilio cresphontes).  As...