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Pale Brown Hawk Moth Caterpillars

Theretra latreillii

Notes:

This series shows two hungry Hawk Moth caterpillars found together on the same stem of our grapevine. The first one (orange specimen) was about 3.5cm long, while the second one (dark brown specimen) was significantly larger - about 6cm long.

1 Species ID Suggestions

Sphinx moth caterpillar
Theretra latreillii Theretra latreillii


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11 Comments

ShannaB
ShannaB 11 years ago

Thanks Franziska, I'll go with that!

FranziskaBauer
FranziskaBauer 11 years ago

Hi Shanna! I didn't intend to give a firm determination, but it looks *very* much like Theretra latreillii but I am not fimiliar with the caterpillars of other Theretra species. So I would give it the name Theretra cf. latreillii :-)
@eyespots: the thoracic segments of your caterpillar are somewhat contracted so therefore the eyespots seem to be situated closer to the head. When the thoracic segments are expanded they optically move away from the head. So in fact, the position of the eyespots of your caterpillar and those in the link is the same :-)
Nice finding, this caterpillar looks so funny!

Wild Things
Wild Things 11 years ago

Beautiful Series!

ShannaB
ShannaB 11 years ago

Thanks Mac! And thank you Franziska for the species suggestion. I had a good look at that one but I wrote it off as the eyespots seem much further back on the pictured specimens than the eyespots on mine. If you can convince me that the eyespot placement doesn't matter, I'm willing to go with it! : )

MacChristiansen
MacChristiansen 11 years ago

Nice series Shanna

ShannaB
ShannaB 11 years ago

Thanks Maria! The eyespots are really cool. : )

Maria dB
Maria dB 11 years ago

Nice spotting, Shanna!

ShannaB
ShannaB 11 years ago

Thanks Mayra!

MayraSpringmann
MayraSpringmann 11 years ago

Beautiful séries!!

ShannaB
ShannaB 11 years ago

Thanks Mauna!

mauna Kunzah
mauna Kunzah 11 years ago

Astounding macro shots.

ShannaB
Spotted by
ShannaB

Maroochydore, Queensland, Australia

Spotted on Apr 6, 2013
Submitted on Apr 6, 2013

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