For Size Reference: see http://www.pbase.com/britestar/image/164052077

The dog is 2 1/2 pounds. As that photo shows, the entire Cactus plant was much smaller than the dog. Continuing on, the total size of the Cactus Flower was somewhere between the size of a nickel to a quarter - at most. The entire Caterpillar - end to end - was only about 1/4 as big as the Cactus Flower. In other words, this Caterpillar was VERY tiny. It was a micro macro. LOL. I actually couldn't see exactly what the Caterpillar was without my Macro Lens.

Because my lens is enlarging details in the photo so much, the Cactus Flower Petals look highly textured. That isn't camera "noise". The grainy look instead is back lighting passing through the translucent texture of the Cactus Flower petals. You can actually see moisture in the petals. Now, that's close up!!!

As an end to this story, the next day a spider (about 1/8 the size of the Caterpillar) came along. I watched (through my camera lens) for a while and even snapped some frames as the teeny tiny spider attempted to get to the Caterpillar. I don't know how that story ended. However, today flower, caterpillar, and spider had all disappeared from anywhere around the Cactus plant. That makes me wonder what might have come along over night to eat all of them. Very perplexing.