a caterpillar crawled under our door and got marooned on our carpet. the flesh colored critter is 2 1/2 inches long, has 12 segments with a tiny head with bristles, a pair of legs under each of the first three segments and a brown spot on the top of each segment. when i went out in the dark to let it go, it was glowing a shocking green between each of the segments. amazingly beautiful! what is it? is it poisonous? thanks, min
thanks squirley, rhizo and larry for the possible i.d. -as for the critter's size, maybe i'm just using too much aged horse manure. ha! i will do some more investigating. min
thanks a lot for your message, tobita - i had given up on getting any more answers. your link makes it seem likely that 'my' larva was some kind of glow worm but i will have to find my very poor photo of it to make a better comparison.
it didn't glow until i had used the flash outside at night to take the photo and then it suddenly glowed so brightly that i was shocked. i let it go in the garden (never touched it!) and i havn't seen another since then. i'm wondering now if it came here on a plant from a nursery- no telling what is being distributed all around the world that way.
