Biggest cat I've ever seen!

Best of lucks to you and his chances with nature. I was over concern, because I've seen half dozen of my Black Swallowtail catepillars disappeared to thin air over night a couple of days ago. I guess, I'm a little overprotective.

I'm concerned for him too, but I think I'd feel worse if I killed him through ignorance, trying to protect him, than if a bird made a meal of him. He's made it this far! :-)

Looks like s/he's almost ready to go too!

Yes, I keep expecting to find a chrysalis instead of a cat out there! There did seem to be a few silken threads spun by the base of the leaf he was chewing on yesterday, but even if he was intending to set up housekeeping there, I'm glad I moved him -- that was a pretty exposed location.

Here he is, clasping the leaf he was munching on.

He's a beauty!

I didn't even see these little strands of "silk" (did he make them? I know he could, but I'm not sure these came from him) until I'd downloaded the photo and looked closely at it.

LOL @ Mrs_Ed's gender/neutral pronoun... I keep saying "he" just as a default, because it gets tiresome to type s/he... truth is, I don't know... and I haven't peeked! (From that link, it seems there's a way you can tell the sex of a chyrsalis, but I don't know if you can tell anything from the cat stage.)

Right, I saw that they could tell once the pupa was made, but not as a cat. I HOPE those are silks and s/he's ready to go. Then you can put the cocoon in the crisper this winter. FWIW, I usually always write and say HE too. Shame on me. Often revert to IT.

Just found this thread. This is so neat and very informative. Glad I came across it so if I find one of these in my yard I will know not to bring it inside to try to raise. But I have lot's of birds and bees so I might have to figure out something to protect it. I've seen the birds pick off tomato horn worms quite often.

I don't have as many birds in my front yard, so that's a point in its favor.

I will indeed put the pupa in the crisper this winter if s/he gets to that point! (Actually, while I don't want to get into a debate on political correctness, I'm not sure there's anything wrong with just picking one pronoun or the other and going with it... )

Neither do I. just say he. But what if one of those orange knobs on its head indicated that it was a she. Then I'd look really smart. LOL.

Perhaps you should just name it something like Chris, Leslie, Val.

"Chris the Cecropia Cat"

I like that! "Chris" he or she shall be from henceforth!

Very good! Heimlich would be pleased.

Love all the pictures and information.
Thanks for sharing
Elaine

LOL! Back when I was a kid, the pronoun of choice in a case like this was always "he." But then we didn't have to worry about all this political correctness then either. Think I liked that a lot better--life was so much simpler then.

But then again, some things weren't so good back then either. I use "it" sometimes, which isn't a perfect solution, but at least it is gender-neutral.

I just switch between "he" and "she" -- I figure I have a 50/50 shot at being correct, LOL. It's interesting to note that many languages assign gender (masculine, feminine, or neuter) to common nouns. I just checked the German translation for "caterpillar," though and it's neuter -- no help there, LOL. "Butterfly" is masculine, and I have a tendency to refer to flutterbyes as "she!" :-)