They are really cool looking! I found some on a shrub outside my house, so I did some research on them. They are a short lived silk moth caterpillar and live an interesting life. If anyone is into bugs like me I linked an article on them.
I found this part really interesting.
Silk. The Moth-er of Invention
Though only a simple concoction of protein, salt and water, silk is a medical-marvel known to have anti-bacterial and anti-fungal properties. The human body has almost no immune response to silk, making it ideal for many medical applications. Silk sutures are already FDA-approved and have been used in patients world-wide for centuries. More recently, medical science has figured out how to reverse engineer caterpillar cocoons into a fluid protein, and ongoing research is looking at using it as a biomaterial base for myriad medical uses. Silk nanoparticles, silk drug delivery systems, surgical silk screws and plates, silk scaffolds that hold organs together, silk surgical gels and more are just some of the possibilities. Amazingly, doctors can “program” silk to degrade at a predetermined rate, making them last a few days, weeks, or even a few years. Another research team has genetically engineered a silkworm that creates a cocoon composed of 95% silkworm proteins and 5% spider silk proteins. The composite silk is 48% stronger than normal silk and about 61% as strong as “dragline” spider silk - the strongest of all spider silk. They hope it can be mass produced and used to make products such as stronger artificial limbs, tendons, parachutes, and bullet-proof vests.https://www.nps.gov/articles/species-spotlight-cecropia-moth.htm
