Help please with green horned caterpillar ID

Hi everyone,
I found this guy on my hardy fuschia this morning, eating away. He was quite colorful so I put him in a jar with more leaves and a misting of water to see what he is. After spending an hour searching a variety of places on the internet, I have come up with nothing! Learned a lot about other caterpillars, though -LOL. Sorry for the blurry photo.

He is about 2 inches long, bright green, and has a single orange horn. He has parallel dashes of color running longitudinally. The bottom dashes are black with a tiny orange dot in the middle, and the upper dashes are black with a yellow stripe inside. There are two solid black stripes running the length of the back on the inside of the upper row of dash lines. Three pair of front legs, four pair of mid legs, and then the "grabby thing" at the end, below where the pointed orange horn sticks up. Excuse my lack of proper scientific vocabulary.

Thanks for any help!

Going by your description more than the photo, I think this might be the caterpillar of the White-lined Sphinx-moth Hyles lineata
http://bugguide.net/node/view/15052/bgimage
http://bugguide.net/node/view/5560/bgimage
http://www.npwrc.usgs.gov/resource/distr/lepid/moths/usa/1066.htm

Thank you for your assistance. It is certainly very similar to the photo in the first link, and given the differences and variability within the species, I am inclined to agree. I will let you know what develops. My children and I will be observing this guy in his new glass house!

I think they pupate underground for the winter - at least the ones up here do. So if you want to see him emerge you may need to provide him a nice dirt floor to bury himself in!

Thanks Zarebeth. Any idea on signs of when they are ready to pupate? Do they stop eating? I'll put in an inch or so of dirt with those daily fresh leaves and he'll think he's at a spa. Man, do they ever generate a lot of waste!

I found one strolling across the parking lot at Best Buy - very big - about 4 inches long and as big around as my thumb. Didn't know what to feed him but I heard they like tomato leaves, so I just stuck a tomato stem in some dirt inside a big jar. He wasted no time burying himself in the dirt. I wish I would have been able to see him emerge, but no such luck. The jar got knocked over and broke. He was fine, so I just took him out and put him in the garden. I like to think I see his descendants flocking to my petunias and cleome...

My guess is that they stop eating and get restless like most cats, and if the dirt is already there they will take advantage of it.

Way to go with the outstanding notes, galega. Observation, good notes and, sharing info are prerequisites to being a naturalist. Bravo!

John

Well...the little green hornworm isn't so little anymore. He must have grown an inch in the last 24 hours! Thanks to your advice, Zarebeth, I've put two inches of dirt in the bottom of a new jar with a piece of screen on top. I showed my kids what a sphinx moth looks like, so they are excited to see this process.

Thanks for the nice comments, John. I don't really consider myself a naturalist, but I do like to identify the things in my yard. I am compiling a species list at enature.com, so I like to make sure the IDs are accurate. Also, it's a fun hobby, but I don't think the family is always as excited as I am to find new creatures!

Aren't tomato hornworms (which I assume this is) make that moth that's like a hummingbird at night? Cool moth!

Oh but, you are a naturalist. I think all of us on this forum are naturalist!

Update on Mr. Greenhorn:

After four weeks in pupae stage, the hornworm just "hatched out" this morning. I was going to try to get a photo of him as my son released him, but he flew away too fast, and trying to get a good shot through the screen on the top of the jar didn't work. Rats! It was a beautiful white lined sphinx moth and looked EXACTLY like the photo in the link above! Thanks Kennedyh - you were right.

The kids have really enjoyed observing him. After we found him, for about a week, we fed him several times a day from the fuschia bush, and he got as large as 3 1/2 inches long. He was kept in a large jar with screen on the top and two inches of soil on the bottom. The last day of his larval stage, he stopped eating, so we knew he was going to pupate pretty soon. That afternoon, we looked in on him and found the dirt was all churned up with leaves, and he was at the bottom of the jar under the soil. He shrivelled up and within a day or two he wasn't so green anymore and only 2 1/2 inches long. About a week later he was dark brown and looked like a pupae. Since August 2nd, we've been waiting patiently, and today when I went in to check him, there was a huge moth staring back at me!

What a lovely creature! I know the hornworms aren't great for the garden, but we sure learned a lot from this one, and were rewarded in the end. Just no photos. Oh well!

I have a picture in my mind from your wonderful description. Thanks! :-)