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Project Noah Nature School
Autographa californica
1 inch. Bright Green, white lines on the sides and back. A dark bluish stripe down the middle of the back. sparsely haired.
Found on lawn grass and dandelions.
I'll be excited to see it go into a cocoon/chrysalis and then turn into a butterfly or moth. Does anyone know how long that will take?
Spotted on Apr 2, 2013
Submitted on Apr 3, 2013
6 Comments
I have some more you're welcome to look at if you have time ever.
ForestDragon, I appreciate you looking into it. I generally avoid taking pictures of invertebrates because beyond a few species of adult butterflies, bees, and wasps I have no idea what I am looking at.
After a fairly thorough search through Bug Guide, I believe your caterpillar here looks like one of the Looper Moths.
Your caterpillar looks very much like Autographa californica, Alfalfa Looper Moth: http://www.wildutah.us/html/butterflies_...
For reference, here is what a Luna Moth caterpillar looks like: http://bugguide.net/node/view/626014/bgi...
I believe that this is a different species than a Luna moth. The body of your caterpillar seems to be more slender and the markings are different. I will see if I can find a closer match for you.
Maybe a Luna moth caterpillar?? Not sure.
This looks like a moth caterpillar. Unfortunately, I am not sure I can give you much more info at this time. If you are feeling adventurous and have a bit of time, you can try searching on Bugguide.net for a match. For butterflies and moths you can choose just to look at caterpillars. You can do a search for "green caterpillar" as well but you will have a load of images to go through.
It depends how old this caterpillar is and what species to be able to tell how long it will take. If you can find what it eats, you could try to raise it.
Good luck!