Green Stinging Catterpillar
Location: Jaraguá, São Paulo city, Brazil
March 3, 2012 1:31 pm
Hello!
This beautiful stinging caterpillar, certainly belongs to the genus Automeris, but I cannot tell the difference between the larvae of A. naranja http://www.scielo.br/pdf/rbzool/v24n3/a01v24n3.pdf and A. umbrosa http://www.silkmoths.bizland.com/kwaumbrosa.htm.
The PDF says in the 10th page that ”Comparisons of descriptions of eggs, larvae and pupae made by Bourquin (1948) with the observations of this study indicate that, if that author has created A. umbrosa, immature stages of both species are very similar. Lemaire (2002) notes that there are no conspicuous differences between the last instar larvae of these species.”
Signature: Cesar Crash
Dear Cesar,
Congratulations on identifying this caterpillar as being in the genus Automeris, a group that has defensive stinging spines on the caterpillars. We will copy Bill Oehlke on our response to see if he is able to provide a species identification.
