CLOSED: good bug or bad bug?

Help?

3" + long, about as round as a pencil...

Close up - has pincers sort of up front...

Great pic A. What a beautiful bug!!!! Now question, on the top pic, are those 'real' eyes or 'fake' eyes I am seeing. If they are fake eyes, to trick preditors, then the other end is the front. If they are real eyes, that end is the front. I too am not too sure what it is.

Patti - I didn't really WANT to handle it to get too close to it because it does seem to have some kind of pincers. It did not appear to have much by way of "face." More like an anteater/ardvark kind of long sloping downwards head. It whips back and forth when I touch it - you know what I mean. I've read the wiki on underwing moths and gave it some grape leaves, calendula, strawberry, and dianthus. Seems to be doing nothing. Maybe it's ready to morph? Wonder if it's the kind that wraps itself up in a leaf? Need to figure out what to do with it so I don't have a guilty conscience if/when something happens to it. :/

It's definitely a caterpillar. Not dangerous at all, it's movements are all a big threatening show.
It DOES look like an underwing caterpillar but I'll have to see if i cant find more caterpillar pictures to identify a particular species =).


http://bugguide.net/node/view/521614/bgimage
http://bugguide.net/node/view/368/bgimage

Try those links and see what you think.

This message was edited Jun 10, 2011 6:15 PM

the NC Museum of Science tentatively identified it as underwing moth caterpillar, possibly Catocala ilia, and recommended oak as host plant. So I drove around the neighborhood and found a stretch where there were several kinds of oak and deposited it on Q. phellos. Hope it will be okay. Thanks for your help! :)

Yummy links!

Thanks again - the only other cat I've seen that was bigger was a tomato hornworm. :)

You mean you didn't keep it and try to see what came out of it!!!!! Oh my, I would of, if I could of gotten it to eat. I have TONS of oak trees here!

I sort of think it may have been injured? Deposited into the water bowl by a bird? The nearest oak is giant old and not very healthy right next door, but there are no overhanging leaves at least 100' from the water dish.

Anyway. I am a firm believer in that "Born Free" thing. Mosty. Heck, monarchs are stressful enough - I have a few more weeks of freedom before eggs and cats start showing up and stressing me out!

Best enjoy this quiet time while I can. :)

I just think that is the coolest looking bug/catepiller/whatever. I love it!

Yeah, cute and cuddly. Crit - check this out.

http://www.facebook.com/l/2aea8/youtu.be/3vgfY_MvR_I."

Thank you also Lady Ashley!!!

I love bug people. :)

I got this message:

The URL contained a malformed video ID.

Sorry about that.

Sorry - that was from FB. Here's a direct link to YouTube

http://youtu.be/3vgfY_MvR_I

A.

That's cool