When I walked out to the pasture behind my house this morning, I found a small area that was filled with odd-looking caterpillars.  A closer look revealed that the caterpillars were in fact dead and in various stages of dissolution.  An area of perhaps 200 sq ft held hundreds or thousands of decaying caterpillars.

The consensus from the caterpillar experts in my life — Jenn Forman Orth and Sam Jaffe — was that these unfortunate souls were likely from the family Noctuidae, the armyworms, and had fallen prey to a fungal infection.

When I went back to check on the killing fields this afternoon, I found an influx of new, live, caterpillars among the fallen.

I’m guessing that the new fellas will succumb to the same fungal fate, but I’m very curious to see what I find tomorrow morning.