Top Photo: Elm Sphinx caterpillar on elm. Each summer I come across a large green caterpillar in an elm tree overhanging the boardwalk in Explore the Wild, an elm sphinx moth caterpillar (Ceratomia amyntor). This species is also known as four-horned sphinx (tobacco and tomato hornworms are sphinx moths). The elm sphinx I see each year is always in the same elm tree, but I’ve never seen the adult, until this spring. Most adult sphinx moths are cryptically colored inRead more
Posts tagged: #hornworm
A Sphinx Moth
I don’t know what made me look up, pure curiosity I suspect. As I craned my neck upward, a large green caterpillar caught my eye. It was about twelve feet up on the underside of a small twig of an elm tree. It was the end of the day, closing time, and I was walking the boardwalk in Explore the Wild for the final time. Although I couldn’t put a name on it, I immediately recognized the caterpillar. I’d seenRead more
Tussock Moth Caterpillar and a Tiny Wasp
I recently posted about a rustic sphinx moth caterpillar which had attached to it’s body dozens of tiny pupae of a parasitic wasp called a brachonid wasp. These tiny wasps (anywhere from 2 mm to 15 mm) lay their eggs into the bodies of caterpillars. The larvae eat the caterpillar from within and pupate inside tiny white cocoons on the outside of the caterpillar’s body, hanging there like so many banderillas on the back of a bull in the arena, it’s painful and will eventuallyRead more
Some Early September Sights
As you well know (if you’ve been following this blog) caterpillars tend to show up more frequently from late summer into fall. It’s not so much that there are more of them, but that the larger species are maturing, their frass more visible on the ground beneath the trees and shrubs that they’re feeding on, and many of them are hustling across the paths on their way to finding a safe place to pupate over the coming winter. Here’s a fewRead more