What looks like a curled piece of ribbon in Suzanne Kuta’s drawing (above) is really an accurate depiction of a smooth, colorful caterpillar that occasionally turns up in local yards.
Suzanna’s drawing was colored, and it’s too bad we’ve had to re-work it into black/white newsprint. Imagine that a gray stripe along the top of the caterpillar is red, and picture a light-colored area with vertical black lines, at the bottom, as being yellow. In nature red and yellow areas are separated by black stripes, as they are here. A black head is on the right.
Suzanna has pictured the caterpillar of a small brown moth that biologists name the Brown-Hooded Owlet. In my yard early autumn is the best time to observe these guys – when they’re full-grown at 1.75 inches long, and resting or feeding on aster and goldenrod flowers.
I’ve learned, too, that owlet caterpillars hibernate underground, building  small chambers where they make cocoons to await the spring. 
After Mrs. Lukan’s first grade class at Damascus School asked me to identify the owlet caterpillar, I challenged them to sketch it, with Suzanna’s drawing as one result.
This beautiful creature was discovered by classmate Drew Hazen – who, next day, returned it to his yard to help it prepare for hibernation.