Smithsonian magazine's 22nd Annual Photo Contest | Made possible through the support of MPB.com

19th Annual Smithsonian Magazine Photo Contest Natural World
We All Have to Start Somewhere, White-Blotched Heterocampa Caterpillar

This stunning caterpillar will transform into an elegant black and white moth - so why is it pink and purple? Who can say…All we can do is gaze wonderingly upon the colorful beginnings of one of nature’s most bizarre, most dramatic, most bemusing processes, in which the caterpillar takes wing.

Photo Detail
Date Taken: 08.2020
Date Uploaded: 11.2021
Photo Location: Columbia, Maine, United States of America
Camera: TG-6
Copyright: © Sydney Michalski