Subject: Red Caterpillar
Geographic location of the bug: Denver Colorado
Date: 09/17/2018
Time: 05:30 PM EDT
Your letter to the bugman: Any idea what kind of bug this is? I’m 99% sure it is a caterpillar, but can’t find a similar one online. It is definitely a creature of some sort, it moved when I tried to pick it up.
How you want your letter signed: Robin
Dear Robin,
This is a third instar Pandorus Sphinx Caterpillar, and here is a matching image from BugGuide. According to Sphingidae of the Americas: “L3: At this stage, the larvae look quite different. The long straight horn now curves and looks strikingly similar to a Parthenocissus quinquefolia tendril. The larvae can be yellowish, green, brownish or reddish with 5 white eyespots around the spiracles on the sides of the larvae.” Your individual has not yet shed its caudal horn.
Correction: Achemon Sphinx Caterpillar
Thanks to a correction from frequent WTB? contributor Bostjan Dvorak, we acknowledge our initial mistake.
This pretty caterpillar is one of Eumorpha achemon I suppose; the white lateral ornaments are multilayered, more complex than in E. pandorus, and it is completely covered by little spots.
Best wishes
Bostjan
Thanks for the correction Bostjan.
One more distinctive characteristic I forgot to mention yesterday: there are six pairs of lateral ornaments in this species’ caterpillar (Eumorpha achemon, as pictured on the photo) instead of five (E. pandorus); and the latter one might rather be restricted to the eastern parts of the continent, but I am not sure whether it could be spread to the western areas as synanthropic species in the meantime… They cooccur in the eastern half of the territory. – A fascinating genus of hawkmoths with the larvae pupating in underground chambers, which is typical for many Sphinginae, but quite unusual for the Macroglossinae…
Nice wishes from Berlin
Bostjan