Mystery Solved!

After doing a little more research, we have determined that the caterpillar is likely an Azalea Caterpillar. They live in the Southeast, eat azaleas and blueberry foliage. They are gregarious, feeding in groups. We found several of them together. Thank you Paul for the tip!

The captive caterpillar does not appear to be very alive. We are waiting a few move days to see if our suspicions are correct. Perhaps caterpillars curled up in the bottom of jars eventually turn into beautiful brown moths. Probably not.

Turtle

For about four years our mom has planted tomato plants, and every year a certain turtle comes and enjoys a meal of tomatoes. This year our mom took down the tomato plants and put them in the compost. Guess what? the turtle came back anyway! Thankfully there were still some tomatoes on it. So it's efforts were still successful. here are some pictures of it.

Mystery Caterpillar

We are always on the look out for caterpillars to capture and study. We found this one eating all the leaves off of our blueberry bushes. We have not been able to determine what kind it is yet. Maybe some kind of tent caterpillar, but we saw no tents. It is now in a jar in the schoolroom and we are on cocoon watch. There were some others caterpillars with it, that we left to eat in peace. They seem to be building their cocoons already. We will keep you updated!