rosenblum@zodiac.rutgers.edu (09/04/90)
A few weeks ago (some time in August), my wife and I were walking along the west bank of the Hudson River in Edgewater, New Jersey. This is opposite the upper West Side of Manhattan. On and around a wooden railing alongside some gravel banks of the river, we saw a large number of caterpillars. Each caterpillar had a little case of its own that seemed to be made out of what looked like coarse dried mud. A caterpillar and case were together about 2 or 3 cm long, with the case being about 1 to 1.5 cm. The case was shaped like a narrow cone, rounded at the apex, with the front of the caterpillar sticking out of the open end. The head and true legs of the caterpillar were always outside of the case, with what I'd guess was about the rear half of the caterpillar hidden in the case (I didn't bother trying to pull one out to see for sure). The caterpillars were moving slowly carrying the cases along with them. The caterpillars themselves were, if memory serves me right, dark brown or black, with longitudinal light colored (yellow? -- I don't remember exactly) stripes. I don't recall how many stripes there were; it might have been one, two or three. The caterpillars were perhaps 3 mm wide; in general, they looked sort of like gypsy moth caterpillars without the hair (except, of course, for the cases). Does anyone have any idea what these might have been? Please reply to me directly; I'll summarize to the net. Thanks in advance. -- Daniel M. Rosenblum, Assistant Professor, Quantitative Studies Area, Graduate School of Management, Rutgers University (Newark) ROSENBLUM@DRACO.RUTGERS.EDU \/ same machine, ROSENBLUM@DRACO.BITnet /\ different networks ROSENBLUM@CANCER.RUTGERS.EDU \ / CANCER & PISCES are machines in a ROSENBLUM@PISCES.RUTGERS.EDU >< VAXcluster called ZODIAC, so these ROSENBLUM@ZODIAC.BITnet / \ 3 addresses all go to the same place.