Beautiful Creepy-Crawlie

This exotic creature was crossing the path the other day -- does anyone know what it is? Yes, I realize it's some kind of -- or something like -- a caterpillar. Maybe. This photograph does not do it justice; those little circles are lined with an almost neon blue.

I've also had a number of far less beautiful creepy-crawlies cross my path lately, and because of them find it necessary to implement comment and trackback moderation on all of my sites. This means that, when you leave a comment or trackback to one of my posts, it will not appear on the site until I have personally approved it.

This feature, and Authentication, have just been added to TypePad's spam fighting arsenal. I had hoped to not use them, but am finding other efforts increasingly useless, and deleting spam after spam is tedious.

So I hope that you, gentle readers, will not find this a discouragement. I love receiving real comments; it's an important reinforcement for me.

[& I see that TypePad's spellcheck is not working . . . ]

UPDATE:  Friend Cindy points me to What's That Bug, which has many spooky and beautiful creepies, including these photos of various Tiger Swallowtail Caterpillars:

I've sent in my photo, and we shall see what they say.

ANOTHER UPDATE:  Daniel at What's That Bug tells me this is, indeed, a Tiger Swallowtail caterpillar.

Susan points out that Fred came across one of these, too.

Comments

[John B.]

You have beautifully strange bugs up your way. And hardy, too--aren't y'all digging your cars out of snowdrifts by this time of year?

Thanks for the pictures.

[Karen]

Cool caterpillar!

There's a flickr group called ID Please:

http://www.flickr.com/groups/idplease/

Members help ID bugs, plants, etc...

I've used it quite a few times.

[susan]

I don't know, but Fred has one of its cousins: http://www.fragmentsfromfloyd.com/archives/2005_10.html#004234