Caterpillar
Records with a date and a place
Black, spined, and blue in the right light — Tawau River Triangle, Tawau, 29 July 2007
Not measured. Branched spines — scoli — on every segment, so this one is a butterfly: Nymphalidae. Genus not determined, and one snapshot cannot settle it.
A hundred on a log — Bako National Park, Sarawak, 29 May 2008
About 100 mm each, and more than a hundred of them in one photograph. Lappet moths, Lasiocampidae, in a daytime resting mass. Nothing was eating them. The first Sarawak record on these pages.
Bristles in bunches — Tawau River Triangle, Tawau, 1 October 2008
Roughly 35–55 mm, estimated from the camera. Bristles in bunches on warts point towards Erebidae, but there are no tussocks on the back — so the name stops at Lepidoptera. Papaya garden, outside the Triangle.
Yellow tussock in a silk tent — Ikutmaju Saw Mill, Merotai, 22 February 2009
About 10 mm. Yellow dorsal tussock with black markings, black hair pencils fore and aft — a tussock moth, Erebidae: Lymantriinae. In a silk retreat on a grass blade.
Four brushes and three pencils — Tawau River Triangle, Tawau, 23 December 2011
Not measured. Four yellow brushes on the back and three black pencils — a tussock moth, Erebidae: Lymantriinae. Feeding on a palm leaflet. Filed by classification, not by wings.
The caterpillar that came to the gate post — Ikutmaju Saw Mill, Merotai, 8 March 2012
About 60 mm, motionless on a concrete gate post with dew still on its head. Most probably a lappet moth, Lasiocampidae.
The dead leaf that was holding on — Bukit Gemok Recreational Forest Park, 29 July 2017
About 40 mm, disguised as a dead leaf with both ends lifted clear of the twig. A lobster moth, family Notodontidae.
When a weaver ant met a nettle caterpillar — Kampung Sayap, Kota Belud, 20 December 2022
A stinging nettle caterpillar (Limacodidae) and the weaver ant that decided to leave it alone.
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