House Guest

My daughter was riding her bike one day early last August when this plump caterpillar, perhaps 3 inches long, brought her to a screeching halt in our driveway. We all ran over to examine it, but we couldn’t help noticing the number of watchful, hungry birds around as well. We moved it to the grass, but it was still too big to maintain a low profile, and it seemed to be in a big hurry.

I dashed inside and hurriedly scanned our caterpillar book, delighted to discover it was a polyphemus moth caterpillar. The book noted that this was a great caterpillar to bring inside to observe the metamorphosis, so we got the aquarium and put it inside with some walnut and hickory leaves, which the book gave as the caterpillar’s preferred food.

By the next morning, it was spinning its cocoon in the corner of the aquarium. “Great,” I thought. “In two weeks, we’ll have a beautiful moth to let go.”

We had a polyphemus moth stay with us for a few hours once before, so naturally we thought of ourselves as experts.

But… did I mention that I “hurriedly scanned” the caterpillar book? Therein lies the joke. I failed to notice with sufficient attention that the late-summer caterpillar overwinters in its cocoon.

So since August, Polyphemus has been our house guest. There on the bookcase, he’s slept through Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, both daughters’ birthdays, Easter, and the state’s shutdown due to COVID-19. Unbeknownst to him (such a long-term visitor deserves a better pronoun than “it”), he has shared in a large portion of family life, all without being the least bit demanding or objectionable.

And one of these days, we hope, he will emerge to show off his glorious beauty for an incredibly brief winged life.