Top Photo: The heat, the humidity, the pups…Finally, Carolina gets a break. After a long stretch of sweaty heat what will probably be a short-lived, but welcomed, break in the humidity is upon us. A Caterpillar While hiking the outdoor loop I noticed a group of caterpillars busily munching on a sapling white oak on the side of the path. At first glance I thought they might be fall webworms. “Can’t be webworms, no web!” Still, they looked familiar. ThereRead more
Posts tagged: #datana
Datana in the Birch
It’s caterpillar time. Although you can see caterpillars munching and crawling about the landscape from March to October, now is the time when you’ll encounter more of them in both numbers of individuals and diversity of species. Daily, people approach me with smartphone images, or even live caterpillars in their hands, asking “what is this?” Sometimes I know what it is, other times I don’t. Fortunately, if I don’t immediately recognize what it is they hold in their hands or haveRead more
More Fall Sightings
Lepidoptera, butterflies and moths, and their larvae, will continue to be active into October and beyond. Here’s a few species I saw last week. I came across two species that I either hadn’t seen before or hadn’t previously witnessed perform a particular behavior. I’ve seen many datanas here in the outdoor areas of the Museum, but I don’t recall seeing an Angus’ datana (Datana angusii) before. If you don’t already know, datanas are caterpillars of small brown moths. I typically see either yellow-neckedRead more