I saw this weird kind of caterpillar I’ve never seen before. It was about 3/8" across, about three inches long, and coloured a solid pastel green. I live in Calgary, Canada, if that helps any with geographic info. I haven’t found anything so far by Googling. Oh, and it had a little tail that looked kinda like a horn.
hmm, maybe a tomato hornworm?
Were the “eyes” black or red? Sounds like something similar that we’ve been getting bucketloads of here in Michigan…
You know, I never checked the colour of his (her?) eyes.
Certainly the body and horn look a little like the one I saw. But this was a little more pastel-y than the photos suggest. More like this colour. Also, he didn’t have any stripes. And his skin texture was different. But I can’t say how for sure.
From what I remember of my entymology classes in my days as a Bug and Plant major (have to love agricultural schools), it does sound like a hornworm. The green does come in different shades (including pastel), and has even (oddly, I think) prompted Behr paint (or Glidden…can’t recall…one they sell at Home Depot) to name one of it’s shades “Hornworm Green,” which looks like a more pastel version of the green in the link above.
Are you concerned about any vegetation you have planted, or were just curious about the species?
It’s not necessarily a tomato hornworm: all Sphinx Moth caterpillars, IIRC, have such a horn, and most of them are green.
Lissener is right on. I misspoke…didn’t mean “tomato hornworm” in particular, but the hornworm family of caterpillars in general, to which the various Sphinx caterpillars belong: