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Cucullia
Spotted these four Cucullia caterpillars while walking in Aquatic Park in Berkeley, CA. There were two large and two small caterpillars. I could not figure out what species they are. They were feeding on a plant that looked like a type of dandelion. Any help with an ID on the specific Cucullia species would be great.
Aquatic Park in Berkeley, CA.
Cucullia is confirmed by Bob Poole from nearctica.com:
http://www.nearctica.com/
Closer he couldn't get neither, the Western Cucullia are obviously still not very well known.
I have seen this moths, but all unidentified. There are anyway not very much pictures of Cucullia sp. caterpillars around.
If you find any, be sure to collect some of the plant it's on too. Many lep larvae have host preferences, and it may be necessary to ID the plant so that the caterpillars will be fed properly during the rearing process.
Great, hope you find more! I'm curious about the defensive coloration. That seems unusual for a noctuid moth.
Awesome. If I find more of these caterpillars this year, I will try to collect then and contact you.
Yes, he lives in the Berkeley/Albany area. He and Paul Opler recently put out a book on the Moths of Western North America (huge hard-backed book). He is an emeritus professor of entomology at UC Berkeley, and still very active in moth taxonomic research.
Too bad this was taken so long ago! I asked Jerry Powell, an expert on the moths of Western North America, and he said it could be any one of 3 or 4 different species that occur in Ca. He says he'd be happy to try to rear them to adults in order to make a positive ID, but I'm sure the ones you photographed became adults a while ago. BTW, Jerry is responsible for the moth data on the Essig website cited above.
Thank you @textless! I am always excited to spot butterflies and caterpillars. Aquatic Park in Berkeley, CA has proven to be a perfect location for spottings.
Thank you for the information Kristin! It does look remarkably similar to the Cucullia speyeri photos you sent me. I will do some more investigating.
I think it is in the Cucullia genus: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cucullia
These larva look very similar to the larva of Speyer's Cucullia (cucullia speyeri) but I do not believe they range south into California. Check out this photo of a Speyer's: http://www.flickr.com/photos/10367239@N0...
There are a number of species that have been reported in California: http://essigdb.berkeley.edu/cgi-bin/calm...
Sorry I can't be of more help.
I thought is might be a monarch too, but these have a yellow stripe near the feet along the entire body.
The colors resemble a Monarch caterpillar but i'm pretty sure it's not that.
Thank you Ronald and Amissa. Any idea what species they are? I have had no luck searching online.
Spotted on Sep 12, 2011
Submitted on Sep 14, 2011
