Live caterpillar found in my house in dead of winter. What do I do with it?

I found a live caterpillar curled up on the carpet this morning. It's hairless and a dark color. Not totally black, but very dark. My daughter had a caterpillar in her room over the summer, but it died. Could it be an egg from that?

What do I feed the thing? Everything but grass is dead now. Should I put it outside? I tried putting it on one of my plants, but it fell off. Afraid my cat will get it. It's very cold outside, but there is grass. If I bring it back in, what would it eat? I would like to save it if I can.

I guess this thread can be deleted. I put the darn thing outside for a minute to keep my cat from killing it and now I can't find it.

[edit on 12-2-2009 by Schleprock]

dont know if this is any use:-

www.farmersalmanac.com...

reply to post by booda


Thanks for the link. It's not a wolly bear caterpillar. I've seen those before. This one is smooth, and a dark color. I'm trying to find a site to id it.

It might be a type of silk worm. Try and see if you can get it to eat lettuce or spinach. ( my son is the bug king ) He knows all kinds of things about them. He says if it doesn't eat the leafy greens, it is one that lives in the bark of trees or underground when the sun is up. In that case they eat things that are decomposing. Like wood, leaves and your root vegetables are sometimes eaten by them too.

Create a habitat for him to become a butterfly.
That would be cool to watch.

reply to post by DrumsRfun


I agree. Make a nice habitat and let it turn into a big pet butterfly! Let it hang around the house and flutter about to entertain guests.


Cheers!!!!

reply to post by Schleprock


Ideal Scenario:
Starving Bird 1 - Frozen Caterpillar Treat 0

Hopefully the Circle of Life did not end with a plump cat eating it.

I put it outside so my cat wouldn't get it and I went back to find it and I can't find it anywhere. I'm going to keep looking. Unless a bird got it, it should be around there somewhere.

I had a caterpillar that I found in the winter and I put it in a coffee can with a stick in it. I put some apple slivers and lettuce in it. It made a cocoon on the stick and one day I found a butterfly in the house! Good luck.

For two years in a row, my young daughter and I have hatched butterfilies out of caterpillars we found outside. I have pictures I took during the process, and I even got to hold one of the butterflies right after it hatched while it was drying its wings. I held it and admired it until it was ready to fly away. It was really neat.

We made a little habitat out of a big jar, and put sticks for them to climb in and a layer of pebbles in the bottom (they poop a lot when they are getting ready to spin their cocoons. We put some netting over the open top of the jar so we could drip a little water in and for air.

The caterpillars are so funny when they are eating, it reminded me of the hookah smoking caterpillar in Alice in Wonderland.

Usually you will find them on what they like to eat, but since you found it inside, you could look it up online if you find it again

Good luck finding it, and if you get a chance, try hatching your own butterflies from caterpillars. It's really fun, and the kids (and even the adults) really enjoyed it.

Found a good link - your post has spurred me on to try and raise some caterpillars with my son...

melanys.tripod.com...