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This being caterpillar season, we put a mystery egg mass on a Swiss Chard leaf into a small container:

I think the darker egg was a dud, because two days later they all hatched and ate their egg cases, leaving that one behind:

Mary deported them to the trash, put two on a leaf in an aquarium on the kitchen table, and, eight days later:

They’ve been chowing down on spare garden greenery; unlike Monarchs, they eat what’s set before them.

One has dark “fur”:

The second is lighter:

A third caterpillar escaped the trash can apocalypse and also resides in the aquarium, albeit stunted by its ordeal:

They’re too bristly to be Wooly Bears. I’m sure they’ll turn into nondescript brown moths.