Tuesday, June 29, 2010

Lepidoptera news

I almost forgot! The other day, the boys brought over a beautiful moth. It's a waved sphinx (Ceratomia undulosa). They are supposedly quite common, but I don't think I've ever caught one before.In other lepidoptera news, my white dotted prominent (Nadata gibbosa) caterpillar is getting quite large. I also observed an interesting behavior, which I remembered from a photo in my caterpillar guide. When I went to change its leaves this morning, it curled up, placed its head over its back, and bared its yellow and black fangs at me! Unfortunately by the time I ran inside to get my camera and got back, I could no longer entice the caterpillar to react. From now on I'm bringing my camera every time I go outside (I keep my insects in a shed in the backyard).

2 comments:

TheFrogBag said...

Wow! Amazing photos! Hope you can get one of the fangs!

Weird Bug Lady said...

Thanks! I hope so too, you can be sure my camera won't leave my side now.