Subject: Two caterpillar id requests

From: [email-masked] (David Hamilton Cox)
Date: 28 Aug 1995 12:36:43 -0600

I noticed a wild little beast clinging to my car tire this morning as I was
getting ready to go to work. I think it is some kind of caterpillar so I
thought I would see if anyone if this group could identify it.

 I live in rural east-north-central Virginia, about 20 miles east of the fall
line.

 This caterpillar is about a half inch long, brown and bristly, looks like he
is wearing a bright lime-green coat over most of his length, which does not
extend to his ends. There is a small hole in this green coat on the top, in
the middle. At either end, there are 2 bristly things poking out, like spears,
or perhaps you call them filaments, I don't know, they are a little thicker
than what I saw one butterfly book call filaments. These spears poke up and
a little to the side. If you look at one end, down at his(her) level, it looks
like he is wearing black-framed white sunglasses. A very distinctive little 
guy.

 As long as I am describing caterpillars, let me describe another one, that I
found climbing up the side of my house about 2 weeks ago. He is about 2 inches
long, white and kind of furry, with a few black filaments sort of randomly
situated on him. I put him in a jar and he made a cocoon within about two
days, sort of like a spider web or silk cocoon, you can barely see thru the
white cotton threads to still see one or two of those black filaments.

 Thanks in advance if anyone can identify these caterpillars.

-David Cox

---

From: [email-masked] (MikeDunn)
Date: 28 Aug 1995 23:46:19 -0400

David from Virginia wrote:
>"This caterpillar is about a half inch long, brown and bristly, looks
like he
is wearing a bright lime-green coat over most of his length, which does
not
extend to his ends.<"

This sounds like a unique (and accurate) description of a saddleback
caterpillar, one of the so-called slug caterpillar moth larvae. This is
one of the few "stinging" caterpillars. It has a wide range of host
plants. I am raising two right now that were found on a sweet gum. Look
this one up in a golden guide and confirm. Liked your description of the
spectacles on the end - made me look! 

The other white caterpillar sounds like it could be a Dagger moth
caterpillar (perhaps American Dagger moth).

Mike Dunn 
NC State Museum of Natural Sciences
Raleigh, NC