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Project Noah Nature School
Citheronia regalis
Adult female is orange and cream (and is shown on my face in my thumbnail). North America's largest moth larva. Awesome is the description for this caterpillar.
Woodland, yard
One of the largest of the Giant Silkworm moths in the Family Saturniidae. I found this larva just 15 feet from my front door feeding on sycamore. I usually find it feeding on black walnut and sumac. Host plants are deciduous trees including ash, butternut, hickory, walnut sycamore. It is my very favorite larva. Not long after I brought the larva in to rear it went underground to pupate. When it came off of its food plant I placed it in a 5 gallon bucket of woods soil and after about a day on "walkabout" it finally tunneled underground.
Spotted on Sep 5, 2012
Submitted on Nov 22, 2012
15 Comments
Thank you Andrea, ChicquitaRajawali, MicheleMorbidelli and tp91395. It really was huge.
What a huge caterpillar Diane! Great spotting!
This is cool!
Bellissimo!!
WOW!
No not really Victoria. I found her in 5th instar and 3 days later she pupated. I still have her in a bucket of dirt so hopefully she'll eclose next year.
I did find a little 1st instar larva though and raised that one this year.
did you raise this caterpillar?
I agree antondazomb, One cool cat
thats one awesome lookin critter
Thank you Mayra
Fantastic!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Thank you all. This larva is harmless to us but a bird could choke to death on those spines. If you touch the larva he usually thrashes his head back and forth trying to scare you off with those 'horns'.
so aptly named ! very interesting.
This is an amazing-looking caterpillar. Very spiky.
Very beautiful larva