A worldwide community photographing and learning about wildlife
Theretra latreillii
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.
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!
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! : )