Hummingbird and Butterfly Gardening: Caterpillar ID help please, 1 by TexasPuddyPrint

TexasPuddyPrint wrote:
Stepped outside around 10pm tonight and found a caterpillar eating my hoya and another eating penta leaves. Am assuming this is a woolly bear of sorts - but these don't seem as 'furry' as the others I've seen before. These seem to have more tufts of bristles rather than be fully furry if that makes sense. They are dark brown to black in appearance (not banded like the usual woolly bears) and have orange bands around each segment of the body. The thorasic legs, adbominal prolegs and anal prolegs and the spine bases are orange. It also has orange spiracles.

Not sure what moth they are but I have seen lots of those white speckled moths - Giant Leopard Moths I think they are called around the mercury vapor security lamp. These caterpillars stretch out to about 2.5 inches - so perhaps they are the larva of the Giant Leopard Moth (Ecpantheria scribonia).

Anyone concur?

~ Cat


This message was edited May 11, 2009 11:15 PM