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Phobetron Hipparchia
It's a stinging caterpillar. Bug guide says: Bizarre, brown, hairy creature that resembles some sort of aquatic creature more than a caterpillar. Three pairs of long arms and three pairs of short arms, which are "deciduous" - often one or more is missing. Bizarre indeed!
It's strange as a caterpillar and still strange and beautiful as a moth, check this spotting to see the Phobetron moth: http://www.projectnoah.org/spottings/840...
Spotted on Oct 29, 2013
Submitted on Oct 29, 2013
12 Comments
Amazing Caterpillar and so nice to see yours and Sergio's adult moth.
Done, José Miguel. Thank you very much.
It would be my pleasure and a great honor!
Wonderful, José Miguel. Maybe you could put a link to my own Hiparchia moth spotting: http://www.projectnoah.org/spottings/840... I think it would be interesting if PN users could have a before/after view of it.
pretty strange indeed!
Weird!
Are you positive janine? I really have no clue.
Yep thanks to your comment I saw that! if you want you can still suggest the ID and I will give you the +1!
Phobetron pithecium larvae
This may be Phobetron hipparchia. It appears that all of the Encyclopedia of Life records for that species are from Costa Rica.
http://eol.org/pages/376956/maps
I did touch it... (-.-)... I was lucky! Thanks for the help!
This is called a Monkey Slug caterpillar. I cannot give you a definitive species identification because I am unfamiliar with the caterpillars of your area, but you may want to look at this page for a beginning:
http://www.whatsthatbug.com/category/cat...
It is a good thing that you did not touch this because they are known to cause painful stings.