CLOSED: What kind of Cat am I?

I was weeding and it scared me when it started wiggling around. But, it is such a pretty silvery-blue color. I had to know what it was, so here I am :-)

Thanks,
Andrea

back end

and belly

unusual one!

That's what I thought!

This caterpillar is in the family Noctuidae (owlet moths); Catacola spp. - possibly Catacola ilia - see http://tinyurl.com/oxc2us and http://tinyurl.com/ps52u6 for images. However, the markings on many of these caterpillars can be so variable as to make field identification from a single specimen problematical.

Wow, that looks exactly like the Catacola ilia!
I'm not sure if you are telling me that I can list it as solved or not.

I tried to do a search here on Daves and I don't see a listing for it. So if it IS the Catacola Ilia, Can someone put of a page for the correct information on this caterpillar and I will supply the pictures?

Thank you for taking the time to ID it. It's definately one of the more interesting cats that I've come across :-)

Andrea

Catocala ilia is in Bugfiles:

http://davesgarden.com/guides/bf/showimage/2433/

Ohh, Thanks Claypa :-) I was looking up Catacola instead of Catocala. That's probably why I didn't find any ;-).

I see from the pictures there now why Suunto mentioned: "the markings on many of these caterpillars can be so variable as to make field identification from a single specimen problematical".The picture of the cat there doesn't have the black markings that mine has, but the picture that Suunto put a link to does.

So. does this mean I have a positive ID? or that there is no way to tell and I shouldn't bother to add the pictures?

Thank you all very much!
Andrea

Ooops - My bad - I see that I misspelled Catocala in my first post here. Sorry for the confusion I caused; I'm one of the world's worst typists...

I didn't notice! I remember the genus name because there's a bunch of them and they're really pretty, mostly, but apparently I would pronounce Catocala wrong, if I ever had the occasion to.

http://www.silkmoths.bizland.com/catocala.html

http://www.silkmoths.bizland.com/NewJerseycatocala.htm

Lol! I couldn't spell OR pronounce it. I still think it's looks just like the ilia in the second link that Claypa posted as well. There's a good picture in there. I found him right under my big native oak tree out front and it lists about 4 different oaks as host plants.

It looks like Here is were you can go to upload your photos of your Catacola ilia. I think suunto has it right. Your guy doesn't really look much like the guy/girl on Daves but according to sunnto they tend to vary. He/she does look exactly like the one sunnto sent. Pretty safe to safe your mystery is solved. http://davesgarden.com/guides/bf/image.php?bid=1070

Ok thanks! I'll mark it solved. I'll have to upload it later... my computer broke where I have my pictures :-(