My bluebonnets are invaded by this crawly! They are here in abundance and I don't recognize them. If it's a beneficial it will break my heart to lose the bb, but I will leave it alone. I'm not aware of any butterfly larvae that feeds on bluebonnets but I'm far from an expert. Help will be greatly appreciated.
Ack!! I have no clue, but someone will be along shortly to answer your question. You could also post on the hummer & butterfly forum or the bug id forum.
Got any passion vines around?
The cat looks like it belongs to a Gulf Fritillary butterfly.
Jerry
It's not the Gulf Fritillary caterpillar. My guess is that it's some kind of moth caterpillar. I looked up the butterflies listed in my book as using the bluebonnet as a host plant and found no match with that one.
This is one of many things I found when I googled bluebonnet as host food - guess i'll leave the ugly little critters alone and be glad I'm a part of the chain!
Texas bluebonnet (Lupinus texensis) - for suffused cloudy wing, gray hairstreak, Henry's elfin, painted lady, American painted lady, orange sulphur
This was found at the following link: http://www.utexas.edu/tmm/tnhc/entomology/butterfly/catfood.html
That link is very informative, thank you for posting it.
Josephine.
