I certainly was not looking for caterpillars in the bookstore. I blame it on the cover. I opened the book and fell headlong into a world of unbelievable creatures. Right now, I'm looking at Hemeroplanes triptolemis doing an uncanny impersonation of a viper, and let me tell you, it's plenty scary.
Leaf through the large-format photographs in 100 Caterpillars and you'll see all the latest in caterpillar-wear from the mountains and forests of Costa Rica. We're talking pine-needle coats, detachable red tails and fake orange eyes. That is, if you can find the caterpillars. Consider the incredibly cryptic Narope, completely indistinguishable from a papery sheath of bamboo, or Archaeoprepona meander, twin to a torn leaf.
But know this: Only the pictures invite wonder. The text has a scientific job to do and you may not be up to the assignment. "It is a cryptic noctuid," write the authors about one insect, "among an ocean of gaudy sphingids, saturniids, heperiids, notodontids, and nymphalids, and a few gaudy noctuids." What's not to love?
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