So when I was little… I was always outside. Either playing with Hot Wheels, GI Joes, Micro Machines, or biking around trying to find the latest spot to build a fort… and when you spend that much time in the dirt, you often find creatures.
Sure I found possums, cicada killers, garden spiders…
but the other day, during a hike… I remembered a giant green caterpillar (which when I was describing it, ended up being a foot… rather than it’s real size of 4” - 6”) that I found in my front yard. I took it to a field office for one of Iowa’s universities and it was identified.
I present… the Tomato Hornworm
Obviously… when a young kid stumbles across one of these monsters, there’s nothing that will stop the kid from playing with it or wanting to know what it is.
These things are pretty huge. It was something that I’ll never forget running into as a child.