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Project Noah Nature School
Limacodidae
insane looking caterpillar! just over an inch long, lime green body, 8 brown hairlike spike projections, pink stripe down its back, also known as a cup moth
forest near cultivated land
I spotted this caterpillar feeding on wild ginger while doing a hike around the Yuangyang rice terraces in southwest Yunnan province.
Spotted on Jan 1, 2012
Submitted on Jan 21, 2012
22 Comments
Thanks Mayra, Eva and Carol, sorry I missed these comments last month. Thanks for those links Nina, I see now what you mean. It hasn't grown out the crazy spikes as those yet. Martin suspected cup moth as well, I should have added the family name back then. Still searching for the genera and species, I didn't see that in the links.
Yours appears to be an immature version of the first in the series in this link:
http://www.alyoneed.com/forum/showthread...
and here
http://www.flickr.com/photos/itchydogima...
WOW! Crazy man! Cool dude!
really beautiful
Uau, Dan, MAGNIFIC!!!!
Indeed Viv!
Very funky!
I added more photos of this caterpillar.
Thanks Mayra and Argybee!
How did I miss this one! A fascinating little caterpillar. Nice find Dan.
Very pretty!!
I'm sure there are a lot of species that don't get much attention. It is exciting to see something few have seen. I know I still have some other caterpillars that have remained unidentified.
Its great to see different ones like this. There must be more species around that don't get noticed or photographed or identified. It's actually rather exciting when I cannot identify a creature like this one.
Thanks martinl. It does look to be a cup-moth. I saw another more similar to the link you provided. I will let you know when I upload it.
Nice spotting dan. Yours is a cup-moth similar to this link. You can see the four pairs of bristles that correspond to the four pairs of horns, and the lateral bristles. http://www.rbgsyd.nsw.gov.au/science/Evo... . I have bred these out to reveal the cup-like cocoon and the dull adult. http://www.projectnoah.org/spottings/796...
I have not found your exact species.
What a star, I love him. Looks like he has paintbrush attachments!
Colour fellar! Nice pic. :)
Thanks everyone. I do see the resemblance to the green oak slug Sarah, but like you said, no exact matches.
He looks like a "green oak slug" to me, however, I couldn't find his exact type while I was searching.
He's a beauty, btw...
That is one awesome-looking caterpillar!
Cool looking little guy!
That's awesome!