Can anyone help me identify this caterpillar? I live in San Diego and this Scotch Broom is covered with these critters. Thanks!
CLOSED: Caterpillars taking over Scotch Broom
It looks like this pest....Genista caterpillar:
http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://hortipm.tamu.edu/pestprofiles/chewing/genista/genista1a.jpg&imgrefurl=http://hortipm.tamu.edu/pestprofiles/chewing/genista/genista.html&h=201&w=300&sz=48&hl=en&start=2&tbnid=jGUo4zfy_yZvUM:&tbnh=78&tbnw=116&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dgenista%2Bcaterpillars%26gbv%3D2%26svnum%3D10%26hl%3Den%26rls%3DDNUS,DNUS:2006-36,DNUS:en
Scotch Broom has its own moth:
http://darwin.bio.uci.edu/~pjbryant/biodiv/lepidopt/Pyralidae/Uresiphita.htm
It seems they are the same G and sp., but the article said that is their main host in the northwest, but eat other plants in Texas.
Sure, but Genista is a genus of Broom plants, so I guess the moth is named after it.
Oh, well that makes sense then!
Thank you both so much. I never expected an answer so soon!
lauriegayle,
We did not have an entry for the Genista moth (Uresiphita reversalis) in BugFiles, so I have created one here: http://davesgarden.com/bf/go/4853/
It would be great if you could add your image to this page,
Kennedy
Kennedy,
Thanks for the suggestion. I did post it in Bug Files and I added my negative comment.
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