What Is It? Help Others


 
This page contains photos of Lepidoptera that have stumped someone. If you can provide an identification, send it to the Society web editor at john.snyder@furman.edu. He will place your opinion under the photo and will notify the person who submitted it.
 
 
If you have a photo whose subject has been tough to identify, send it in to be added to this page. When you submit a photo, please (1) provide it in electronic form (jpg preferred), (2) provide as much information as possible about where it was collected or seen, and (3) provide your own name and email address.


This photo was submitted by Roy Eagleton, and was taken in Gurgaon, India.  He describes it in this way:  The caterpillar measured about 10 cm long and was about 1.5 cm in diameter.  It had a dark brownish upper body with an orange underbelly. There were silver spots in a pattern over the body. The head was striking. Orange coloured and with turquoise translucent eyes with black rings around them. There was a kind of “eye” (as in hook) at the tail end.

Jeff Miller submits that it is "an excellent match" to the Sphingid moth Daphnis nerii (commonly called the oleander hawkmoth) which he has identified in northern Thailand.





 
This striking photo was provided by Manuel Grosselet and Georgita Ruiz.  The caterpillar was found within an ecological recovery terrain, inside an oil refinery complex in Southern Mexico: Refineria de Santa Alejandrina, Minatitlan, Veracruz.  Various lepidopterists have identified it as a member of family Dalceridae, related to Limacodidae.  Eduardo Lucof gets it down to genus level:  Acraga.
 
Jim Johnson works in Nevis, in the Eastern Caribbean, where he found this caterpillar. It was in an upper elevation (2000 ft.) rainforest. 

Jeff Miller submits that it is likely to be Pachydota saduca, an Arctiid moth.
 



 
Hanna Roland, of Solingen in Germany, was visiting Venezuela in October 2006 and found these two animals that need identification. Details: at Casa Maria, near Bejuma at an elevation of 750m.

Eduardo Lucof places the bottom one within the genus Zale.  Can anyone get it down to species level?

 
 
This one isn't an "unknown" but it certainly is unusual. Nell Ahl found it and graciously gave permission for its photo to be displayed here. Of course, it is the North American Saturniid moth Automeris io (seen July 13, 2006), but the left hindwing has one complete "eyespot" and two incomplete additional ones.
 
 
Guillermo Molina asked for an identification of this larva, photographed in Guatemala. It is about 2 cm long.

Jeff Miller says that it is likely Heterochroma sarepta (a moth in family Noctuidae).