FIERCE IN LOOKS, HARMLESS AT HEART

By Cheryl Conley

Lake Creek Nature Preserve

One would expect that with a name like hickory horned devil, the creature attached to it would be a venomous beast, spewing out fire, waiting in the woods to eat whatever comes near. Surprisingly, it turns out to be a magnificent, totally harmless member of the insect kingdom.

The hickory horned devil caterpillar is simply the larval stage of the regal moth (Citheronia regalis), and it’s a giant—often reaching the length and circumference of a hot dog. It’s green or turquoise body is segmented and covered in soft black spines that give it the look of a tiny dragon. The head is reddish-orange with four black-tipped horns that curve backward, completing its fearsome yet fascinating appearance.

Like all caterpillars, the hickory horned devil undergoes a complete metamorphosis—from egg to larva (caterpillar), to pupa, and finally emerging as an adult moth. Among all these stages, the most fascinating is the caterpillar or larval stage.

It begins as a tiny egg laid on the underside of a leaf and in 6 to 10 days hatches into a small, unassuming caterpillar. During this 35 to 42-day life stage, the caterpillar does something quite ordinary—it eats, and eats, and eats. It feeds on the leaves of hickory, walnut, sweetgum, and persimmon trees. It will eat 2 to 3 times its body weight in leaves every day and grows to over a thousand times its initial size during this month-long life cycle. During this time, it sheds its skin (molts) multiple times, each time revealing a larger version of itself. By early fall, it has reached its full size and crawls to the ground where it burrows into the soil and becomes a pupa. After about 8 months, it emerges as a regal moth.

So, the next time someone mentions a “horned devil,” remember it’s not a monster lurking in the woods but a gentle leaf-eater preparing for its next act. The regal moth may be its final form, but it’s the hickory horned devil that truly steals the show—proof that nature’s most fearsome faces often hide the gentlest of stories.

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