Pandorus Sphinx caterpillar I don't know when I first began getting interested in caterpillars, but if the fascination shown by my now-three-year-old granddaughter is any indication of child development in this direction, then for me it started more than six decades ago. I can, however, be more precise in tracing my current interest in adolescent lepidopterans. Blame it on the 2005 publication of David Wagner's Caterpillars of Eastern North America: A Guide to Identification and Natural History. The magnificent book, a member of the Princeton Field Guide series, got me hooked, and Wagner, an ecologist and professor at the University of Connecticut, has been wonderfully helpful over the years when I've hit a snag and needed confirmation of an ID. No real problem with this one, which turned out to be a Pandorus Sphinx Moth caterpillar. The only tricky part was that the coloration of the body is normally closer to tan than almost black. Perhaps the skin color of the caterpillar I found and photographed gorging on grape leaves is a sign that the creature is about to pupate, its strategy for avoiding winter.