Caterpillar

Records with a date and a place

Black, spined, and blue in the right light — Tawau River Triangle, Tawau, 29 July 2007

A velvety black caterpillar with branched spines, iridescent blue shafts and orange-red cones, on a green stem

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

A dense mass of large hairy lappet moth caterpillars packed side by side on the bark of a fallen log at Bako National Park, Sarawak

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

A purplish-brown caterpillar with a cream-white side stripe and bunches of black bristles, lying along the edge of a green leaf

Not measured. 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

A small tussock moth caterpillar with a bright yellow dorsal tussock and black pencil hairs, resting on a grass blade at Ikutmaju Saw Mill, Tawau

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.

A passenger on the hump — beside SMK Abaka, Tawau, 2 August 2009

A young swallowtail caterpillar, dark brown with a pale yellow-green band and short black spines, on a green leaf

Not measured. Humped behind the head, pairs of short black spines and a pale forked tail — a young swallowtail butterfly, Papilionidae. A tiny mite was walking over it.

Four brushes and three pencils — Tawau River Triangle, Tawau, 23 December 2011

A hairy caterpillar with four yellow brushes on its back and long black hair pencils front and rear, lying along the edge of a palm leaflet

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

The dew-covered front end of a large pale caterpillar, probably a lappet moth, on a painted concrete post

About 60 mm, motionless on a concrete gate post with dew still on its head. Most probably a lappet moth, Lasiocampidae.

The looper that would not keep still — Eda Sawmill log yard, Tanah Merah Mangrove Coast, 7 December 2012

A knobbly cream-and-brown looper caterpillar arched high on the edge of a green leaf

Not measured. Prolegs only at the rear, so it walks in loops — a geometer moth, Geometridae. Named on iNaturalist as the Asian cross-lined wave moth, Traminda aventiaria (Sterrhinae).

The dead leaf that was holding on — Bukit Gemok Recreational Forest Park, 29 July 2017

A reddish-brown caterpillar folded like a crumpled dead leaf at the tip of a shrub, Bukit Gemok, Sabah

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 nettle caterpillar, family Limacodidae, on a grass blade at Kampung Sayap

A stinging nettle caterpillar (Limacodidae) and the weaver ant that decided to leave it alone.

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INDEX : Insects