Mark Eastburn was hiking with his wife and son along a boardwalk in the woods of Medford Lakes, N.J., last week when they were stopped in their tracks by an amusing caterpillar attempting to scare them away.
Eastburn told USA Today/For The Win Outdoors that they were hiking at the YMCA’s Camp Ockanickon when they encountered the intimidating creature.
“My wife pointed out the caterpillar, which had reared up as soon as we approached,” Eastburn told For The Win Outdoors. “My wife had said, ‘There’s a friend of yours,’ because she knows how much I like bugs.
“I actually run a small business breeding and selling insects and isopods at rolypolyranch.com. I was particularly impressed by this caterpillar’s slight swaying and upright posture, which looked like a perfect impression of a snake. It stayed that way for more than five minutes, because I kept watching after the video cut off. My battery was low at that time.”
Eastburn later learned it was a spicebush swallowtail caterpillar, which becomes a spicebush swallowtail butterfly. The spicebush swallowtail caterpillar is also said to mimic dead or dying leafs to protect themselves from predators.
But it is most famous for mimicking a snake.
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“To be honest, I’d only ever heard about snake mimic caterpillars in the tropics before, and this came as quite a surprise!” Eastburn told For The Win Outdoors.
“My best guess is that it looks the most like a corn snake or a copperhead, although it looked to me a lot more like a Pokémon.”
Photos courtesy of Mark Eastburn.
