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colorful sawfly larva
Tue, Dec 23, 2008 at 10:49 AM
Hi WTB,
I took these photos more than two decades ago in Rhode Island, near an old lime kiln (I was looking for land snails). I always thought this was a caterpillar, but recently when I couldn’t find it in Caterpillars of Eastern North America, I was perplexed. I e-mailed the author of that book, David Wagner, and sent him these photos. He identified it as the poison-ivy-eating sawfly larva. I search the WTB pages and could not find this sawfly larva pictured, so I thought perhaps you would like it.
Keep up the good bug work!
Jeannie
Rhode Island

Poison Ivy Sawfly

Hi Jeannie,
Long ago we posted an image of an unidentified Sawfly that looked similar. Thanks for sending your photo of a Poison Ivy Sawfly. Out of curiosity, do you have a scientific name?  We did a web search of Poison Ivy Sawfly and found Arge humeralis.  There is a matching image on BugGuide.  We searched our archives for the image we posted in 2007, and sure enough, it was found on Poison Ivy.

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