Autumn Leaf

Thanks EarlyStages! now this explains a LOT and very good references I must say. I now agree and leaning to the identification you guys made. great discussion!

At the expense of possibly bruised feelings (please forgive me in advance), the "problem" stems from the spotting Ary referenced . . .
http://www.projectnoah.org/spottings/130...
. . . the ID of which has not been corrected – a common issue it seems, at least in my limited experience supplying identifications. But in fairness to Jason, who is undoubtedly very busy, a CAREFUL read of the ENTIRE posting, to include opening the links I provided, should have precluded any subsequent confusion. FYI, the Autumn Leaf is widely distributed from India to Australia: http://ftp.funet.fi/index/Tree_of_life/i....
Kind regards,
Keith Wolfe
California

thanks shekainah and EarlyStages. Pardon me for I'm a dead n00b in this things and I myself don't have any background in biology science or whatsoever. I just love animals (and living organism) so much. The main problem is the link of reference to the suggested name. The brown soldier that was suggested referenced to another PN spotting that was taken in a neighbor city (Bandung) to this (Bogor) spotting while the leafwing suggested name have none. I just googled it now and found this: http://www.flickr.com/photos/67156567@N0... which suggested by EarlyStages on the Bandung spotting have a very similar characteristice even though it is an Australian species. Now I'm very confused which is the correct name for this spotting as both of the suggested name have their own points of strength.

I'm not an expert with insects but I agree with EarlyStages. My ID suggestion for this caterpillar was based on my actual encounter with the species ( Leafwing butterfly). A Brown soldier butterfly caterpillar however is dull black in color with brownish-black branched spines all over the body and more or less 2.5 cm long. If similarity is the subject, Brown soldier caterpillar is more similar to the Blue pansy caterpillar in appearance than that of a Leafwing. I recalled my father used to breed this butterflies in our backyard butterfly conservation garden.

Ah, I didn't catch the meaning, please accept my sincere apology too @EarlyStages.

Squaresolid, please know that the emphatic correction was aimed at the "hastily" (twice!) suggested ID, not necessarily you for agreeing with it. How long one allows a misidentified spotting to remain so is entirely a matter of personal choice. My sincere apology if I seemed to imply otherwise.

well pardon me, i didn't know such rules existed. only been here for 3 days :)

Absolutely not, repeat NOT, a Brown Soldier caterpillar or anything else in the genus Junonia!

thanks guys. i'm glad to know that species it is :)