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.

Can someone help him identify it?






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 Dalcerid, related to Limacodid.  Any more specific identification?
 


Jim Johnson works in Nevis, in the Eastern Caribbean, where he found this caterpillar. It was in an upper elevation (2000 ft.) rainforest. Can anyone identify it for him?






 
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.
 
 
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.
 
 
Please help Guillermo Molina with an identification of this larva, photographed in Guatemala. It is about 2 cm long.