12 November 2012

Monday macrobug: big green worm

Posted by Callan Bentley

Found this caterpillar in the dirt the other day outside my house…

Here it is (in the palm of my leather work gloves – the width of a finger may be seen blurrily in the background):

I spent some time looking for matches on Bug Guide and in Garden Insects of North America by Whitney Cranshaw. The book wasn’t as helpful as the website this time. Looks a lot like this one (though the lighting conditions of the photos are different) and this one and this one. There are others that also look similar, like this one and this one and this one and this one. Maybe the genus Lithophane? I’ve spent almost 40 minutes trying to ID this caterpillar from these photos, and I think I’ll have to leave it at that.