It looked as if a piece of bird dropping had formed a miniature snake head on one end. We had just exited the garden when I noticed the caterpillar glistening on a leaf like the bird poop which it resembled.

Two year-old Daughter was in my arms yet again, her insistent “Up!” having reminded me that humans are a species with high parental investment. She asked me if she could touch the caterpillar (no, I didn't trust her fine motor skills not to squish it), and whether it was “chilling out” (yes, I supposed so, although I'm ambivalent about the slang she's picked up from my casual speech). Still, I couldn't resist prodding the little thing with a dried leaf. Little orange prongs flicked out like a forked tongue.

Given nature's inordinate fondness for beetles and other six-legged beings, my insect ID books only cover a small part of the diversity surrounding us. Fortunately this species was one of the handful of caterpillars pictured in my butterfly book. One phase of the spicebush swallowtail caterpillar resembles excrement, but in the next phase its snake head becomes useful. By now it has probably rolled itself into a leaf where it's lurking like a tiny green snake.

This is a good time of year to appreciate our arthropod neighbors before the turning seasons decimate their numbers. We still have a post-it note warning “Spider!” at our front door, where a beefy red spider had been making magnificent webs across the door frame every night before giving up and moving elsewhere. The yellow jackets living next to my mother-in-law's porch enter and leave their underground nest in a steady stream. Woollybears crawl through the grass and leaves on inscrutable errands, preparing to spend the winter in a frozen state. Daughter can touch these, and enjoy the simple childhood pleasure of watching them curl into bristly doughnuts. My own fond memories are colored by their tendency to pee when picked up by clumsy hands.