We received two photos from a reader along with the question of “what is this?” The first photo shows the creature from the right side up. It appears to be a purple or brown color, quite round, and segmented. The second photo shows the creature from the underside. Its underside is green. Based on these photos we believe that she has found a waved sphinx caterpillar!

Waved sphinx caterpillars eat the foliage of ash, lilac, and fringe trees. These caterpillars can also have a wide range of coloration, often depending on what their primary food source is.

Without more information about where our reader discovered this caterpillar we cannot say that it is definitely a waved sphinx caterpillar, but we are pretty sure it’s a match!