I also get these, but tussock moth caterpillars are the only ones I go all out to eliminate because they eat up the precious leaves and also damage the quality of the remaining leaves.
Subject: 2014Backyard bird and butterfly (and dragonfly too) watching
applestar wrote:I had thought that this was a Parenthesis ladybeetle/ladybug on the corn.
But it started to bother me that it seems much bigger and lacking some specific colorations.
Finally realized it's a "Swamp Milkweed Leaf Beetle"
https://bugguide.net/node/view/2970
I'm *hoping* this is a pupa on a common milkweed. I'll have to keep an eye on it because it looks awfully similar to a Colorado potato beetle pupa, but the large black head/thorax makes me think otherwise.
...Hmm... Looking at the lifecycle illustrations on the bugguide link, this is the larva.
...and this little one which is 1/2 the size of the larva -- and which I thought was a ladybug for sure this time -- is actually a newly emerged from pupa beetle: