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Unnamed spotting

Description:

I'm hoping this is going to turn into a luna moth. It spun a cocoon the very night we brought it home.

1 Species ID Suggestions

Promethea moth caterpillar
Callosamia promethea Callosamia promethea


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4 Comments

ForestDragon
ForestDragon 10 years ago

Hi katara, caterpillars are truly amazing! It's true that most butterfly caterpillars have very little hair, some of them have a neat velvety coat, others have sparse hairs.

For instance, some Skipper Butterfly caterpillars are covered in very short hairs:
http://bugguide.net/node/view/380638/bgp...
http://bugguide.net/node/view/29309/bgpa...


Moth caterpillars, on the other hand, can be very furry, slightly furry, spiked or even completely without hair. Here are a few examples, please click on the links to look at the pictures. These are all identified:

All Sphinx Moth caterpillars have no hair but many of them have a cool big horn on their rear ends:
http://bugguide.net/node/view/547811/bgp...
http://bugguide.net/node/view/690242/bgp...

Geometrid Moths are another group of moths with mostly hairless caterpillars. You might know them as inchworms:
http://bugguide.net/node/view/714147/bgp...
http://bugguide.net/node/view/366364/bgp...
http://bugguide.net/node/view/334405/bgp...

Silk Moth caterpillars like the one in this spotting also do not have hair, though many of them have spines and horns and such and they are very big!:

http://bugguide.net/node/view/308148/bgp...
http://bugguide.net/node/view/51428/bgim...
http://bugguide.net/node/view/697884/bgi...

There are many more examples I can give. If you can, see if you can find a field guide to caterpillars so you can see all the different types. You can also look through pages on Bugguide or several other websites with butterfly and moth info. Many of them have pictures of caterpillars as well.

I hope this helps! Feel free to ask if you have any other questions.

katarafaith
katarafaith 10 years ago

Caterpillar moths are fuzzy
Caterpillar butterflies are smooth

jaymeperks
jaymeperks 10 years ago

Cool pictures they are very interesting!

ForestDragon
ForestDragon 10 years ago

I agree with TheKittenBasket. This looks like a Promethea Moth caterpillar. Here is another link with more pictures and information:
http://bugguide.net/node/view/22990

dazynay
Spotted by
dazynay

South Carolina, USA

Spotted on Jul 10, 2013
Submitted on Jul 18, 2013

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