Poor Caterpillar and mites

salden · Post by **salden** » Sat Sep 15, 2007 11:52 am

and, I am not sure that that other little insect is crawling around the cat.

beetleman · Post by **beetleman** » Sat Sep 15, 2007 1:59 pm

Some kind of parasite eggs for sure. The caterpiller does not look to good right now. Like having an alien eating inside you

Ken Ramos · Post by **Ken Ramos** » Sat Sep 15, 2007 5:32 pm

Poor caterpillar

I bet it was going to be a butterfly one day too. Looks a bit like a butterfly cat, I think.

salden · Post by **salden** » Sat Sep 15, 2007 5:45 pm

Ken Ramos wrote:Poor caterpillar I bet it was going to be a butterfly one day too. Looks a bit like a butterfly cat, I think.

I think it was a monarch pillar.

Gordon C. Snelling · Post by **Gordon C. Snelling** » Sat Sep 15, 2007 6:59 pm

Looks like a Sphingid of some sort. Those are not eggs but pupae of small wasps.

rjlittlefield · Post by **rjlittlefield** » Sat Sep 15, 2007 8:13 pm

I agree with Gordon. Do a Google image search on braconid pupae.

Identity of the caterpillar is a bit uncertain, but definitely not monarch -- those things are brilliantly striped from the earliest stages.

Side view to show the tail if any would nail down if it's a Sphingid.

BTW, it looks like there's one other small bug in there, crawling around, just a hair below dead center in the image.

--Rik

salden · Post by **salden** » Sun Sep 16, 2007 3:40 am

Rik:

Identity of the caterpillar is a bit uncertain, but definitely not monarch -- those things are brilliantly striped from the earliest stages. You are right. I have (and posted) images of the monarch caterpillar and they are colorful.

Side view to show the tail if any would nail down if it's a Sphingid. - I will see if it is still there and get a few more images.

BTW, it looks like there's one other small bug in there, crawling around, just a hair below dead center in the image. - Yep, that is the one I could not ID. Unfortunately, this is deep within my tomato plants and hard to get to.

rjlittlefield · Post by **rjlittlefield** » Sun Sep 16, 2007 8:55 am

Ah, tomato plants!! Big green caterpillar on tomato -- almost certainly sphingid. In your area, probably Manduca sexta -- Carolina Sphinx.

--Rik

Gordon C. Snelling · Post by **Gordon C. Snelling** » Mon Sep 17, 2007 11:12 pm

I agree tomato plants pretty much nailed it.