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Papilio victorinus victorinus
Young avocado tree in a fruit trees farm, at Jalacingo, Veracruz, México.
As friends here said, this catterpillar is maybe of a swallowtail butterfly (Papilionidae). Maybe a butterfly specialist could do the ID for this. Update: Nacho García has identified this caterpillar as Papilio victorinus victorinus. Thank you Nacho!
Thanks for the information Marco. I love cooking with aromatic herbs, leaves, twigs, anything .... but we don't get such interesting avocado here. Sounds good - enjoy !
Leuba, it is very common to find avocado leaves with that gills, thank you for tell us what cause them. For tamales and other mexican food recipes we use an avocado variety named "aguacate oloroso", maybe Persea americana var. drymifolia. Its leaves are very aromatic and are used for some delicious poultry, fish and meat recipes. The fruits are smaller than super market's avocados, and have a soft and palatable skin, we eat the pulp and skin with a bit of salt when they look black colored, http://www.avocadosource.com/slides/2004....
Marco, the galls are made by small insects (psyllids) called trioza anceps
http://biocontrol.ucr.edu/hoddle/trioza/...
I found some interesting information
"Avocado trioza
Avocado leaves infested with trioza was intercepted in March at the San Diego/Mexico border. Avocado leaves are used to wrap tamales. Trioza infested leaves make a tastier tamale. "
Sourcce:
http://ucanr.edu/sites/alternativefruits...
Very cute ! We had a similar-looking giant caterpillar at the pageant yesterday - for a festival here.
Marco, you have some galls on the leaves as well ( the reddish growths) -makes a great spotting. Thanks.
Nacho García, muchas gracias por la determinación de la especie de la oruga.
¡¡Wow que gran foto!! (creo que se parece a un pokemon :) ) ¡ Bienvenido a Project Noah!
Uups, a new member I did not notice! Disculpe, Marco! Bienvenido a Project Noah!
Welcome to Project Noah MarcoE.UtreraLópez
Nice first spotting,congrats and thanks for sharing
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Spotted on Feb 26, 2014
Submitted on Feb 26, 2015
