Salt Marsh Caterpillar Moths (Family Arctiidae)
Salt Marsh Caterpillar Moths like sunny places—wet, dry, and disturbed, and can be found from the Atlantic coast all the way to Alaska and the Yukon. The SMC is a very mobile little critter, moving fast and far looking for edibles. The females lays masses of —from 400 to 1,000 at once—on host plants, and she (not surprisingly) dies a few days later. The eggs hatch in four or five days, and the caterpillars hang out and feed together during their first two instars (more than quintupling their size) before going their separate ways.