catterpiller poop

I bought a scraggly houselplant and gave it some love and attention - repotted it in good soil, fertilized and watered it carefully.  It was doing really well, and the leaves were much bigger and more lush.
Then I found a whole lot of black globs on the table and on the floor under the plant.  Many of the leaves were gone.  When I looked closer, I found this guy:

It was a surprise, but it's kind of neat to see this kind of wildlife in the house.  I really want to see what kind of butterfly it becomes, so I just cleaned up all the frass (aka insect poop), put down newspapers under the plant, and will just wait and see if it develops a cocoon.

That was last week.  Two days ago, I found it at the bottom of the basement stairs.  I put it back where it was, but today, it was in the bathroom.  Then I read more about it in a blog kindly sent to me by Christine Noronha, Entomologist at Agriculture Canada in Charlottetown.  She identified my catterpiller as  Spilosoma virginica, Virginia Tigermoth.  She also sent me a link to this blog:  

http://tywkiwdbi.blogspot.ca/2010/07/virginia-tiger-moth-spilosoma-virginica.html

The blog describes its habit of "pacing" or frantically looking for a good place to pupate.  I think that is what mine is doing.  I quickly gave up on my idea of waiting for the adult. Looks like it won't emerge until spring.  So I reluctantly took it outside to a shady spot with lots of leaf litter.  It lay curled up for a while, and then explored a tree trunk before vanishing under some dry leaves.  

I'm actually going to miss the little bugger!