Special Recognisable Caterpillars of Butterflies and Moths in Australia

Don Herbison-Evans, (donherbisonevans@yahoo.com) and Stella Crossley

UNIQUE BIG CATERPILLARS
approximately 8 cms long or more

Chelepteryx chalepteryx brown, pale stripes, sparse sharp hairs, eats Wattle leaves	Chelepteryx collesi black and white bands, yellow warts with sharp barbed hairs, eats Gum leaves	Carthaea saturnioides grey, orange patches, big round eyespot on each side of each segment.	Alcides metaurus smooth, covered in black and white thin bands, orange patches, plain orange head
Coequosa triangularis green, warts, a black knob each side of the tail, small pointed orangish head	Hippotion celerio green or brown, 4 eyespots on the thorax, big spot with black centre with white dots, smaller spot plain yellow	Theretra oldenlandiae smooth, black, a speckled white line each side, orange spot each side of each segment, thin spike on the tail that wiggles when it walks, eats Busy Lizzie	Metura elongatus lives in a portable brown silk case, sparsely camouflaged with short parallel sticks
Charaxes latona green, several big white spots on body, 4 horns on the head	Charaxes sempronius green, several yellow crescents on body, 4 horns on the head	Clania ignobilis lives in a portable case, covered entirely by parallel sticks, with 1 stick much longer than all the others	Plutorectis mjobergi huge, lives in a portable case up to 15 cms long, covered entirely by detritus, off-white head

Tyria jacobaeae smooth, alternating black and yellow bands along the body, black head, eats Ragwort	Nyctemera secundiana hairy, alternating black and yellow bands along the body, brown head, 2 hair horns on head	Uraba lugens hairy, yellow and grey, complex dark horn on head	Plesanemma fucata smooth, green, pointed floppy horn on head
Euproctis melanosoma hairy, black, 2 red spots on last segments	Spodoptera litura smooth, dark brown or grey, 4 yellow spots on the thorax	Anthela acuta hairy, brown, white warts except pink on the last 3 segments, eats grass	Lepidoscia arctiella lives in a portable case, covered entirely by parallel sticks, tiered in sections of decreasing radius
Hyalarcta nigrescens lives in a naked portable brown silk case, with ribs

Australian butterflies

Australian Lepidoptera

Australian moths

(written 15 July 2020)