Subject: Caterpillar
Location: 22nd/Craycroft, Tuscon, Arizona
August 28, 2017 12:40 AM
Do you know what type of caterpillar this is? Found it round the 22nd/Craycroft area, is it poisonous? The stripes on his body was silver looking but not in the pic. Thx. Did ya get my other pics on your site?
Signature: Diane Minten
Dear Diane,
In the future, please use our standard submission form for new submissions (Ask What’s That Bug? link on our site) because tacking on a new series of images to a previous response we have given on an unrelated species creates problems for us when creating new postings. We had no idea where 22nd/Craycroft is located, which forced us to use Google Maps to determine it is in Tuscon, Arizona. This caterpillar is in the genus Sphingicampa, and the Saturniidae of Arizona page indicates four species found in the state: “Sphingicampa albolineata: July-August, Sphingicampa hubbardi: July-August; southwestern half, except extreme west, Sphingicampa montana: July-August; extreme south, Santa Cruz, Sphingicampa raspa: July-August; extreme south, Santa Cruz.” Your early instar caterpillar does not look exactly like any images posted to the site and we may try to contact Bill Oehlke to get a species identification. We believe your individual most closely resembles this image of Sphingicampa albolineata that is pictured on BugGuide. It is not poisonous. We have nearly 25,000 unique postings to our site. We don’t know to which other “pics” you are referring.
Bill Oehlke provides a different identification.
I am more inclined to think raspa, but I am not sure. There is probably some variability among larvae of each individual species.