Subject: Caterpillar found while weeding
Location: Austin, Texas
June 24, 2012 1:28 pm
Hi!
I found three of these beautiful caterpillars while pulling weeds today. Unfortunately, I injured one before seeing them, but did manage to not harm the remaining two. They are eating on an unknown weed to me.
I have used your website in the past to identify many bugs, but after searching for 2 hours, I still have been unable to identify this caterpillar. I am hoping you can help me.
Signature: Deborah
Hi Deborah,
We believe this is a Questionmark Caterpillar, and that is an actual species identification and not a confused reply. We matched your photo to an image of a Questionmark Caterpillar, Polygonia interrogationis, that we located on BugGuide. According to BugGuide: “Caterpillars feed on nettle, false nettle, elms, hackberry, Japanese hops.” We only have one previous posting of a Questionmark Caterpillar, so it was easy to overlook while scanning our site. We do have numerous images of the adult Questionmark which gets it common name from a silver mark on the underside of the hind wings which is thought to resemble the interrogation mark.
Thank you so much! I had assumed it was a moth caterpillar since we see many more moths than butterflies here in Austin. I still cannot figure out what they are feeding on, even after looking up pictures of the plants mentioned in BugGuide. I sure hope to see more of these!
Deborah
The food plant list might be incomplete.
I grow hops for homebrewing and dozens of these have devoured my hops this year in NH!
We are sorry to hear your beer supply this year may be diminished, but the butterflies are lovely.