Florida Caterpiller
Location: DeLand, Forida
July 24, 2010 11:30 am
Hi,
Can you tell what kind of caterpiller this is? It was found in DeLand, Florida on a Pole Bean plant in my garden on July 24, 2010.
Thank you for your help.
Sincerely, Maria
Hi Maria,
This is a Skipper Caterpillar in the family Hesperiidae. Skippers are butterflies, but they are often described as being a transitional family between butterflies and moths. Many Skipper Caterpillars look similar, as you can see on BugGuide. We believe it may be a Long-Tailed Skipper, Urbanus proteus, and we found a nice website called Mike’s Page that details how to raise a Long-Tailed Skipper Caterpillar by feeding it leaves from beans.
Update
Long-tailed Skipper caterpillar sex – male or female
July 24, 2010 1:37 pm
The two orange dots just a little over half way down the back of the Long-tailed Skipper caterpillar indicate that its a male. With a few species you can tell if the larger caterpillars are male or female by these dots. Brazilian Skipper’s dots are white.
I recently became a fan of whatsthatbug on facebook and am thoroughly enjoying your posts.
Thanks bunches,
Edith Smith
Hi Edith,
Thanks for this wonderful tip. It is a new one for us as we didn’t think there was an easy way, other than genetic testing, to determine a male from a female caterpillar of any species. We also appreciate your compliments.
i love caterpillars i wish there were some in my garden.=(
The two orange dots a bit over half-way down its back indicates that it’s a male. Cool stuff!
I have a bout 15 little long tail Skipper caterpillars on my sweet pea plant right now – I just noticed them yesterday, they were just eggs… And today I looked and they have made little ‘tents’ all on the elves to hide during the day time hours, and they come out at night to feed. It is really neat!!!!
We would love to see a photo or two if you have a chance.