Subject: BIG Caterpillar..
Location: Goa, India
May 21, 2012 12:36 pm
Hi, This beauty frightened the life out of a clothing stall-holder while i was walking past. The photo was taken in January 2012 in the state of Goa in India, and i’d love to know what kind of butterfly/moth it would eventually turn in to. The length was a very impressive six or seven inches!!
Thanks for your help 🙂
Signature: Mike
Hi Mike,
This Moth Caterpillar looks very familiar and we believe there is another example in our archives, however we cannot remember what it was identified as and we didn’t have any luck finding it in our initial attempt. When time permits, we will return to your identification request. Perhaps one of our readers will have better luck and post a comment.
Ed. NOte: Thanks to a tip from lepidopterist Julian Donahue, we were informed that this is a Lappet Moth Caterpillar in the family Lasiocampidae. We narrowed our search in the archives and located a match with the Tea Oil Caterpillar submitted from Malaysia a year and a half ago.
James Adams, lepidopterist at Dalton State College, responds: “Definitely a lasiocampid of some kind. Looks very similar to a large Guatemalan lasiocampid I reared many a year ago.” Lasiocampids are lappet moths; the best known representatives in North America are known as tent caterpillars (Malacosoma).
Thanks Julian,
Based on that tip, I found the caterpillar in the archives that I alluded to, and it is known as the Tea Oil Caterpillar. The previous submission was from Malaysia.
James Adams responded: “Definitely a lasiocampid of some kind. Looks very similar to a large Guatemalan lasiocampid I reared many a year ago.” I posted his response to the WhatsThatBug website.
Looking at every angles, i believe it is Lasiocampid caterpillar and maybe it is lebeda cognata specie. Found in the tropics and mainly diets consist of citrus leaves, rose leaves and any small greenish leaves scrubs.
Thanks so much for the comment. We did a search for Lebeda cognata and we found a Nature in Singapore pdf that was published two weeks prior to our posting.