We just found this guy on our driveway. It’s not the larval form of something, is it? And if it is, what the hell is it the larval form of? The damn thing is 4 inches long!
If it dropped out of the trees, I’m never going outside again!
Hickory Horned Devil caterpillar
This ugly duckling turns into a large and quite pretty moth - the Regal Moth
http://cse-ferg41.unl.edu/pub/leps/index.html?page=royal-walnut
He sure is ugly. I love his stupid, confused looking face.
BTW, since somebody beat me to the identification, I’ll just point out that there are a few caterpillar identification sites out there. Starting out from the “knobbly” picture on this one gets you to your caterpillar pretty quick:
http://www.whatsthiscaterpillar.co.uk/america/
Of course, that presumes that you’ve already decided it was a caterpillar.
Glad to know what he is. I still wonder where he came from, though. I don’t have any nut trees on my property – we found him underneath our big River Oak.