Little black and white striped fuzzy caterpillars what are these things I have them everywhere! Sorry no pictures. Are they good or bad? There are too many of them to be good surely! They are gobbling everything up in site!
Little black and white striped fuzzy caterpillars!
Can you get us a photo? That would certainly help narrow it down.
No camera lol They have dark gold running from head to toe on their back close to their body and then the black and white shoots out from thier body, they are only about and inch long I have one milkweed plant outside that I was waiting on seeds from that I don't know a name for and babies have covered it but I have them everywhere! They sure aren't particular what they eat!
By any chance, do they look like this? You mentioned gold, black and white.
http://www.oznet.ksu.edu/johnson/hort/Butterfly/BlackSwallowtail.htm
Donna
Sounds like tent cats. If so, not good! Here's a link:
http://www.ca.uky.edu/entomology/entfacts/ef423.asp
or
http://www.na.fs.fed.us/spfo/pubs/fidls/ftc/tentcat.htm
Or does this site help? It helped me identify the swallowtail catepillars that were nibbling on my parsley.
Donna
http://www.whatsthiscaterpillar.co.uk/america/
This message was edited Jul 30, 2007 9:44 AM
Not tent cats they are only about an inch long.
Donna this site looks like I may find it they sure have a lot of pictures for fuzzy cats for this month I have to wait a while for it to download lol Dial up! lol and computer trouble, thanks I will let you know when it gets thru and I get thru all of them lol
Wait a minute - black and white? Fuzzy? With some gold? You mentioned milkweed plants? Is this it? It's a milkweed caterpillar.
http://bugguide.net/node/view/16331
Possible?
Donna
What is that, Donna?????? I have never, ever seen one of those before! Crazy looking cats! I wonder what the adult butterfly looks like????
I'm still looking for a picture of the adult. Apparently, from what I'm reading, its drab by comparison. There's tons of pics of the cats, but virtually none of the adult. The good thing is that they seem to be harmless. LeBug has a lot of larvae, in addition to the paremt. It's that larvae time of year. I never paid much attention until I was visited by swallowtail cats a couple of weeks ago. They weren't so numerous, but they did have the larvae with them. Swallowtails are also known as parsley caterpillars - and that is what they were doing - eating the flowers on my parsley - darling!
http://davesgarden.com/forums/t/753493/
Donna
I haven't seen the picture yet having so much trouble with this darn computer don't ever upgrade microsoft lol I've had trouble every since! I'll get it sooner or later....sigh
I bet that's it though I've been seeing them everywhere but now they are all over my milkweeds one is just covered with them and they are only about 1/4" big right now kind of creepy looking there's so many of them lol
Mean while have you tried the alcohol on the milkweed bugs? I've been spraying them on the seed pods and it kills them, finally something to knock them out! Works n the cinch bugs too but I don't know if it will hurt the butterflies, I've sprayed the mealy bugs on my plants with the alcohol in the past and it doesn't seem to hurt the butterflies.
Donna I would upload your picture of the parsley but it would take forever maybe after I see what this cat looks like lol
That's it! If you get a picture of the butterfly/moth would you send me a link lol I'll try and download it lol I have a link to 'What's That Bug' but I can't get it downloaded for right now and I need to go to town for a bit.
Thanks Donna!
Dear LeBug,
I think I have it. What you have is also referred to as a Milkweed Tiger moth. Here's the image:
http://farm1.static.flickr.com/72/214526062_5bdaa919f4.jpg
And here is the image of a Milkweed Tiger Moth:
http://www.biosurvey.ou.edu/okwild/misc/mtmoth.html
The cats are a lot more exotic!
Here the two are on the same page:
http://images.google.com/images?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rlz=1T4TSHB_enUS217US218&q=milkweed+tiger+moth&um=1&sa=N&tab=wi
Thanks. This was fun.
Donna
This message was edited Jul 30, 2007 4:37 PM
Thanks Donna it only took me 5 min to download lol I have seen lots of those around thanks for taking the time to find it for me I really appreciate it!
I'm not quite sure that I want them to eat all of my weeds they are hungry little bugs! I bet there is 100 on one plant I want to save some for the butterfly cats lol Besides I see them eatng other plants too so I think I will just move them in the field. They will make nice juicy bugs for the lizzards and frogs when they grow up lol