Hickory Horned Devil | Wildlife Wednesday

Back in late October we went camping at Huntsville State Park. It had been several years since we’d been and I needed to tackle some trails there for the hiking guidebook I’m writing. Which, now that I look at my archives, I can’t find that I wrote about that here….??? Oh, wait, I found it, hiding in a life update post from June. Yes, still plugging away on hikes for that and I probably should post an update soon of how that is going!

It was rather warm for October at the state park but we carried on and sweated it out. On Saturday of that trip, we had one of my most favorite wildlife encounters, and that says a lot because it was a caterpillar! But like THE BIGGEST CATERPILLAR IN NORTH AMERICA so I mean, it was a good sighting! We were wrapping a up a loop putting together a group of trails including the Chinquapin, Prairie Branch, and Dogwood Trails and as I was catching up to Chris and Forest, who were stopped ahead of me, I looked down a few feet off the trail where they were standing and gasped. I thought they had seen the caterpillar but they hadn’t and words could barely escape my mouth but I knew exactly what I was looking at because it had been on my caterpillar Life List for years! A Hickory Horned Devil, aka the larvae of the regal moth, Citheronia regalis.

I immediately knelt down to get photos and video and was just enamored with this gorgeous creature. How lucky was it that we had stopped right there and seen this beauty as it was searching for somewhere to pupate and enter diapause for winter?! We took more phone photos and I tried to get some good ones with my camera because you can guarantee this is going in the entry in the book for this state park!

I kept my eye out for more as we finished our hike and then throughout the rest of the weekend, hoping I’d magically see another one. We’re on the far western range of its habitat here in Texas. There was no such luck for more so I will have to savor the encounter until we, hopefully, find another one in the future!