A Giant Caterpillar... and giant butterfly
It was 12-13 cm / 5 inches long and about 1 cm / ~0.5 inches thick...
Since the caterpillars are the larval form of many insects ( butterflies... ), I wondered what size that butterfly would be if the caterpillar is that long and thick...
I was really curious to know what creature would come out of this caterpillar...
And my question was brilliantly answered by a friend of mine !.. ( Thank you, Elena Alabina )
This is a "Citheronia regalis" ( Russian: "Цитерония королевская" ), the name of the caterpillar is hickory horned devil and here is a Wikipedia article about this species of butterfly.
An interesting thing is that I used to see and even I used to take pictures of a giant butterfly in this area several years ago while looking closely at my pictures and at the pictures from Wikipedia I realized that what I had seen was a diferent species, still giant and therefore still supposed to have caterpillars the size I have seen through...
The pictures I added to the page ( see below the caterpillar movies ) have been taken in Frederick MD on 2004 August 6th but this seems to be another butterfly, not Citheronia regalis, still giant though... What means that giant species of butterflies are presented in Maryland not by Citheronia regalis only...
So, the remaining question is what species of butterflies I had seen here in 2004 ?..