If I'd been living in the South, this caterpillar would have been all too familiar. David Wagner's guide to moth and butterfly larvae informs me that I had found a Yellow-striped Armyworm, and, as a sign of its status as a genuine pest, the rather handsome young insect is also known as the Cotton Cutworm. We, of course, don't have any cotton for Spodoptera ornithogalli to pester, but it apparently isn't all that particular about diet. There's plenty for it around here to eat and what's intriguing about the beast is that it's a migratory species that heads north from southern haunts every spring. The YSA apparently isn't able to winter over in cold climates so, according to Dave, the adult moths ride "storm fronts that push up from the Gulf of Mexico" in May or so and repopulate our area with foliage chompers. Since this is the first of the species I've ever spotted, I'll give them a pass this time and let them munch to their heart's content... for now.