Looks like a red-spotted purple butterfly caterpillar.

I'm pretty sure that's it. I'm surprised I haven't seen this caterpillar and rarely the butterfly itself even though it's listed as fairly common. Which is odd compared to all the swallowtails and Monarchs I see.

Tiger swallowtails and giant swallowtails have been flying here recently, and there do seem to be more Monarchs this year than the last couple years. Noticed some young promethea moth caterpillars on my tuliptree the other day.

Saw a ton of Woolly Bear caterpillars last fall. Then I saw what looked like version of them the other month that were bigger with tan only and white only fur.

Seems like a bumper year for everything!

i seem to recall ... we had a rather mild winter in MI ... lacking snow cover at times....

could that correspond to more wintering over???

ken

We've had several mild winters now but last year had more freeze thaws and limited snow cover. I would have expected less but maybe the freeze thaws helped?