Whorls of spines

  

We worked the low tides in Monterey County during the last couple of days.  Here's a fun caterpillar we encountered along the trail this morning (29 May 2024).  My guess is Western Sheep Moth (Hemileuca eglanterina), but let me know if I'm wrong!

Nibbling

  

I was helping Emma and Fern scout some potential research sites this afternoon (9 July 2022) and we started to notice some Western Tussock Moth caterpillars (Orgyia vetusta) in the high intertidal zone.  Eventually we discovered that the caterpillars were coming from the top of the bluff where they had been feeding on lupines.  At one point Fern looked down to see the scene shown above — a Lined Shore Crab (Pachygrapsus crassipes) feeding on one of the caterpillars!  I haven't seen this before, so it seemed worth documenting.

Earlier in the day I had noticed a few of these caterpillars, but in this case what caught my eye is that the caterpillars were eating seaweed!  Here's a Western Tussock Moth caterpillar nibbling on Ulva intestinalis:

 

 

P.S.  With thanks to Fern and Emma for sharing their observations today!

Warming up and remembering

It's been in the upper 70s during the last few days, and butterflies have been passing through our yard.  Yesterday (1 April 2018), a Gulf Fritillary (Agraulis vanillae) landed in a fruit tree for a few seconds.  I didn't get a great shot, but here's one for the record:

 

This triggered a memory of finding Gulf Fritillary caterpillars and chrysalids a couple of years ago (June 2016) while we were in the line for SF Giants Ferry.  The dock is in Larkspur, and I noticed a passionflower vine (Passiflora sp.) just before boarding:

 

Looking more closely, there were several Gulf Fritillary caterpillars (below) — with bold stripes and prominent spikes!

 

And there were also a few chrysalids attached to the frame supporting the passionflower vine:

 

For more about Gulf Fritillaries, see the post called "Silvery spots" from 11 April 2015.

Mystery solved, with a little help

I was trimming some branches on a shrub outside of our house, and was surprised to encounter this:

 

Okay, that's an extreme closeup.  

Below is a different view, and from further away:

 

 Do you have a guess about what type of animal this is?

The picture below shows one end of the animal:

 

Are you ready for the answer?

The next picture will give it away:

 

This a Carolina Sphinx Moth caterpillar, sometimes called a Tobacco Hornworm (Manduca sexta).  Some of you might also be familiar with Tomato Hornworms (Manduca quinquemaculatus) — instead of diagonal lines as in this Tobacco Hornworm, Tomato Hornworms have v-shaped markings on their sides.  Tomato Hornworms also tend to have eight stripes, rather than seven.  And the "horn" is red in Tobacco Hornworms, but tends to be black in Tomato Hornworms.

Here's a view of this large caterpillar from above:

 

I'm grateful to this caterpillar for helping me solve a mystery.  We're living in a new house, and I hadn't known the identity of a purple-flowering shrub.  When I found this caterpillar, I realized I had a clue.  These caterpillars eat plants in the Solanaceae Family (tobacco, tomato, eggplant, nightshade, etc.).  So then I did a quick Internet image search for shrubs in that family with purple flowers.  There it was!  It's sometimes called Blue Potato Bush, or Gentian Bush (Lycianthes rantonnetii, or Solanum rantonnetii).

And here's one more fun fact about the caterpillar.  Gardeners might think of the hornworms as pests because they have voracious appetites for leaves of valuable crops.  This is not a "wimpy" caterpillar — the one I found was ~3 inches long!  Their scientific name, "Manduca," is appropriate — it means "glutton."

P.S.  If you'd like to see pictures of the sphinx moth that this caterpillar will turn into, click here.

  

On the buckwheat

Here's a bit of a mystery.  Can you guess what caused this pattern on the leaf of the Coast Buckwheat (Eriogonum latifolium)?

 

The next photo will give away part of the answer: 

 

A small caterpillar was feeding on the outer layers of the Coast Buckwheat leaf.  I'm guessing the caterpillar is either a blue or a hairstreak.  Unfortunately, I'm not sure which one.  If you know which butterfly this is, let me know, and I'll post the answer!

Photos from the Pinnacle Gulch Trail on 19 June 2015.

P.S.  Click on the names for an example of an Acmon Blue, a Gray Hairstreak, or a Coast Bramble Hairstreak.

 

A silken nest

Just a short little story about a caterpillar and its host plant.

If you ever come across a silken nest of everlasting or cudweed flowers...

 

...it may be a clue that there's an animal living inside:

 

I gently pulled aside a portion of this nest to expose the caterpillar within (but I closed it up again after I took these pictures). 

 

This is the caterpillar of an American Lady butterfly (Vanessa virginiensis).  It made a wonderful nest on an everlasting plant (Pseudognaphalium sp., formerly Gnaphalium sp.) in the Bodega Dunes.  The caterpillar binds the flowers and other plant material together to form a shelter.  It crawls away from the nest to feed on the plant's leaves.  I posted about American Lady butterfly adults previously, but this is the first time I've photographed a caterpillar of this species locally.