I took a picture of what I think was an American Lady rolled up in her plant this summer.
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/31514346
Is there a project for something like this? Not gall related per se, but I’d like to take/see some more photos of leaf rolls and flower bundles.
The is a “Caterpillars of Eastern North America” project that may contain similar observations. https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/caterpillars-of-eastern-north-america
I think they are called retreats, and a quick search doesn’t reveal any projects specific to such. Of course there are camouflage situations that fit with the title of your post, too. I often find spiders tucked up in silken retreats between leaves and at the base of stems, and also in silk retreats in the ground amongst the fibrous roots of plants. It would be a fascinating project if you decided to start one!
Atriplex canescens in my front yard has some caterpillars. I was thinking they are Brephidium exilis and I’ve been stalking them for many days. The butterflies peak here around November 1st. Lately the caterpillars have been burrowing between the leaf layers. Perhaps this explains how they survive the nightly frosts. I’ll share a photo if it helps.
Here is another for the future project. Ghost moth deep in the roots of restios.
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/33959245
Here’s a project that’s close to what you’re after but a bit more extreme.
https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/leafminers-of-north-america
Animal Architecture I think would cover it, but I don’t see any when I looked for them.
Even visible caterpillars don’t get identified nearly as often or quickly as adult leps, and they usually have to be later instars to get much attention. I think it helps a lot if you include the host plant (if known) in the description and the “Insect Host Plant” observation field. I think if the host plant is mentioned or identifiable from the photo and a caterpillar is visible but not necessarily identifiable to species yet on its own, identifiers are more likely to give you the benefit of the doubt. I’ve had some of american ladies emerging from nests that were identified, but one has been languishing for quite a while! I’ve taken pictures of the nests with no caterpillars visible but figured they would never be identified, so didn’t bother to post them.
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/11072762
These little insect nests are interesting and a project might get some attention on them. I know I would be interested in comments on what they might be even if they aren’t actually identifiable to species, like this one I had.
I’ve found that filling in the Life Stage annotation for leps gets them almost immediate attention. Half of my ID effort is marking unknown caterpillars as Leps and then marking as Larvae. There seems to be a caterpillar crowd. They just need help getting records to meet their filter settings.
They can be quite intricate!
https://inaturalist.nz/observations/5935621
I imagine this varies by region, as I make it a point to mark the life stage for my caterpillar observations (and put them in the Insect Larva project) but rarely see them receive any attention.
Wow, thank you everyone. I didn’t know the terminology. I have sporadic access to iNaturalist, so I am happy to create a project but might need some advice on what category to put it in, what do you think would be better, “animal architecture” or retreats? I like animal architecture, but i wonder if there’s a way to do something as a subsection of the “caterpillars of north america” project - then again, I love spider hideouts.
edit: reedit: edit i have no idea how to make a project apparently, i tried to create one but it immediately incorporated every single arthropod observation in the world
You’ll have to use the “traditional” style project (kind of hidden at the bottom of the new project page) - you chose a “collection” project. Collection projects automatically include every observation that meets the filters you selected. Since there is no way to filter for refugia you’ll have to add them one by one, which you can only do in a traditional project. more here https://www.inaturalist.org/pages/managing-projects
Thanks! I found the hidden link, last time I created a project it was automatically a traditional project.
yeah everything gets changed around every couple years, to keep us on our toes 
There is now a “Hidden Invertebrates” project https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/hidden-invertebrates :)
these are unbelievably cool. thanks for sharing. I’m adding this to the long list of winter projects…finding my hiding insects obs.
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