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Posted in Caterpillars

Hairy Caterpillar with Black and Yellow Stripes

We received the following email a little while ago: “it’s black with yellowish stripes and hairy. What is it?!” That is the entire message, and no picture was sent with the email. We presume our reader found some sort of creature that he wanted us to identify, and just decided to convey this desire in the most concise manner possible. Based on its description, it sounds like our reader found a caterpillar, so below we explore some caterpillars that are hairy and have black and yellow stripes.

Posted in Interesting Worms

A Yellow and Gray Caterpillar

A reader recently sent us a very direct and simple question. The reader merely sent a picture of what appears to be a caterpillar – it was referred to as a worm, though – and asked what the “worm” was and what it ate. The caterpillar (or what we believe to be a caterpillar) is almost entirely yellow, although it has some gray stripes on it. They aren’t perfectly horizontal stripes, however, as they make more a “v” shape. There are also dozens (if not hundreds) of small black dots on the creature’s back. What is this yellow caterpillar with gray stripes and black dots on its back, if indeed it is a caterpillar at all?

Posted in Interesting Worms

Caterpillars with Large “Eyes”

We recently received a couple of great photos of a brown caterpillar (or rather a brownish, tan caterpillar) from a reader. The reader correctly assumed he had found a caterpillar (as opposed to a worm, which is what many people who find caterpillars assume them to be), and he was wondering what kind of caterpillar he might have found. It has dark stripes on its body and what appear to be large eyes. We can’t be sure how big it is because there is no scale in the picture other than a leaf (which we also don’t know the size of), but we would guess it’s around an inch or so in length (most caterpillars are around this size). So, what is this brown, striped caterpillar?