Happy Thanksgiving from the Silvery Checkerspot! See the turkey feathers on the hindwing?
Silvery Checkerspots, along with their cousins, the Gorgone and Baltimore Checkerspots, spend winters in Tennessee as partially-grown caterpillars. How do they survive? One way they survive is by wearing little “overcoats.” These “coats” are really special skin, which is both thicker and has a more dense covering of spines than normal. When the weather warms in spring, they will shed their “coats” and resume eating and growing until they are mature caterpillars. Then they pupate and emerge as colorful adults to grace our landscape here once again.
©Rita Venable 2011
- Silvery Checkerspot with Turkey Tailfeathers
