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Hyles livornica
colourful caterpillars about 6cm long, non hairy
rough area of garden, semi-arid tree-bush savannah, hot wet summer, mild dry winter
There were two individuals here which I came across in my unkempt garden. After photographing them I was contemplating putting them in a container and waiting to see what the metamorphosed into; unfortunately while I was musing a couple of Buffalo Weavers descended from their nest nearby and snacked on the caterpillars - my camera was too far our of reach to record the demise. This spotting was on the Botswana side of the Limpopo. Its a shame the format of PN above always seems to cut the bottom off my pictures
In South Africa there is to my knowledge only Hyles livornica found. There are some reports of Hyles lineata, but I am not sure if they are correctly identified or just mixed up Livornica with the Lineata which is a strict species of the Americas. But they are once considered as the same species (old world Livornica vs. new world Linneata). In the wikilink you see a list of host plants of which Euphorbia is just one of them.
OK , I've now looked up each of the other species and as you suggest, bayucca, H. livornica is the only possibility from the distribution info
Thanks bayucca, the genus Hyles looks good.
I see what you mean by the variability in colouration.
H. livornica seems a highly likely possibility, two things worry me a little; there are reportedly 29 Hyles species - what do the other 20+ look like?
my caterpillars were not eating a euphorb
In my eyes the only possible candidate (which would not mean anything)...
As it is for all Sphingidae caterpillar very variable within the same species and different area. Below is a link to show that for Hyles euphorbiae:
http://www.senckenberg.de/root/index.php...
Livornica: Best match: http://www.flickr.com/photos/johnspooner...
http://www.arkive.org/striped-hawkmoth/h...
http://www.flickr.com/photos/charaxes14/...
What do you think??
Agree; the closest I can find is the Leafy spurge Hawkmoth but that is european /asian and introduced into the States. The pattern is good but the colours don't quite match as that species seems to have black or red as the base colour whereas my spotting is pattern on white
Spotted on Nov 23, 2012
Submitted on Dec 21, 2012
+1
