Giant Leopard on our back porch.

Moth, actually. Hypercompe scribonia

A few months ago we found a large black furry caterpillar on what passes as our back porch. In addition to the spiky blackness, each segment was separated by a smooth orange ring that circled its body. The Girl and identified it using my old Golden Press "Butterflies and Moths" that I had as a kid.

I pulled up some handfuls of plantain (the weed, not the banana - we live South but not that far South) and took it in to the Education department at the museum where I work. It munched happily for a few days, then disappeared under a chunk of log, binding a mass of woodchips about it laced together with strands of silk.

More to our surprise, a few weeks later the moth appeared. It was not expected until it had overwintered. Our capture and observation had some effect on the the normal course of events.

Schrodinger's cat existed in a quantum state of half-live/half dead, the outcome unsure until the actual observation. Our moth emerged from it's vessel retaining that state of caterpillar/moth. The wings never fully expanding, the body retaining some essence of it's juvenile shape and color.

Sad and beautiful at the same time.