Possibly Tortoise Beetle larvae from South Africa

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Subject:  Caterpillar
Geographic location of the bug:  Zimbabwe harare
Date: 01/21/2018
Time: 02:35 PM EDT
Your letter to the bugman:  Clusters of this bug can only be found on one tree in our garden.  Demolishing the leaf to a skeleton before moving on.  They have been here for 2 weeks now with no sign of lying eyes or making cocoons
How you want your letter signed:  Di

Tortoise Beetle Larvae, we believe

Dear Di,
These are NOT Caterpillars, the larvae of butterflies or moths.  Rather, they are beetle larvae.  We suspect they are Leaf Beetle larvae or more specifically Tortoise Beetle larvae from the subfamily Cassidinae.  Knowing the tree would be of tremendous assistance to providing an actual species identification.  The look like the Fool’s Gold Beetle larvae pictured on BioDiversity Explorer, but that would mean your tree is actually a shrub in the family Solanaceae.

Tortoise Beetle larvae we believe
wow Thank you so much.  I will have to take a leaf down to the local nursery to identify the tree/shrub.  it is very big for a shrub over 5 meters at a guess but it is shrub like with many big stems/trunks and hanging branches I cannot see anything similar on the internet when I use the shrub name suggested.
I will continue looking and searching.

Best regardsDiane

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