This small 1/2 inch long insect was feeding on an angel trumpet leaf. The posterior part of its body resembles a woolly bear; however, the front part does not have similar bristles. Its feet and head shines like gold in bright light. Any assistance with its identification is appreciated.
This message was edited Jan 11, 2007 9:12 AM
A look at it in different lighting which better shows its antenna, gold-metallic looking head and hairs on its "chest" area ...
A view from above makes it look as though it is wearing a hula skirt ...
OMG - Now I'm going to have nightmares!!
Have you been been on any airplanes recently? lol.
Its a very small insect, but it is really weird looking. I'm sorry I may have caused you to have future nightmares. Nope, I haven' been on any planes lately ... :o)
I'll be watching to see what this is - its very interesting!
It is an ugly icky porkypine looking bug. LOL
'Howdy 'htop ..
(am still a lookin' about)
Your 'hula skirt wearing dual-morphing crawly' may be the larval stage of a beetle or one of the sawflies.
* I'm leanin' toward the sawfly larva tho' ..
- Magpye
lilyfantn. I jave been searching, but have found no photo of an insect that resembles it.
Soferdig. It does look loike a porcupine. :o) I am kinda growing fond of it now. I brought it in and put it in a jar with the angel trumpet leaf it is on. I had better gather more angel trumpet leaves. I have to keep this little guy supplied with food. We are supposed to have some very cold weather with icing this week that may kill my angel trumpets to the ground. They have bloom buds all over them. :o(
Magpye, howdy to you. I have searched and searched thinking that it may be a moth caterpillar (I don't think that it's head looks right to fit this category though), but haven't had any luck. I'll check out the sawflies first. Thanks for your suggestions. Hopefully, we Texans won't be sendin' any ice your way.
It's on the way .. htop.
Been raining since last night; more so and much harder, now - and temps are already below freezin'. Any time now .. we'll be glazed over and locked in - real well. Rest assured tho' .. won't be holdin' ya personally responsible none (heehee)
((huggs))
- Magpye
Oh well ...
I may need to rescind my prior crawly bug 'direction-pointing', htop ..
For that beast is lookin' more similar to some of the MANY beetle larvae!
Here's a starter page, that contain a few somethings that are a bit similar > http://bugguide.net/node/view/60/bgimage?from=48
* Be warned: there appear to be more than 500 pages of images, of which are still unidentified.
.. Eeeeek!
- Magpye
That hug felt good, nice and warm ... kinda got a bit of a chill as I try to provide protection for some of my plants while its raining. Temps are not that cold yet, but the artic front came through about 2 or so and the temps have been falling fast. Sorry about the icey stuff there. That moisture came right through my area headin' toward y'all. We're gonna have some icey stuff too I am afraid. I had to throw a huge sheet of plastic over my greenhouse and tack it down cuz the summer sun caused the cover to become quite holey from UV damage. Thanks for the link. I'll start checking 'em out. With the foul weather, I'll be inside for a few days (don't knkow how to dry in icey conditions) and this will keep me outa trouble. :o) Bet you can't believe this, but the whole city here pretty well shuts down when it ices up even a little bit.
oh no, it's the dreaded and feared "Don King Carpenter Ant"!............................>
Trackinsand that was tooooo funny!! I will now be carrying around this terrible mental image for hours. LOL
~!
This insect should make it someday into a new Sci-Fi movie. The body or thorax is one thing but that head is eerie...............
Cuckoo
trackinsand, maybe I need to do a new search ... Don King +carpenter ant + larval stage. :o)
tetlleytuna, as I read trackinsand's comment, I envisioned this huge ant at a boxing match and it had Don King's head. That is scary.
Cuckoo, its head is what drew me to the leaf. Though very small, it was glistening brightly in the sunlight. It is a true gold color. I had to set my camera to flash mode because it was underneath a leaf. It being so small, I took sevral photos to be sure that I obtained one that was in focus. Then, I pulled the leaf off and went inside to take some more photos still using athe flash mode. After all of these photos, the little guy appeared to be stunned and never moved much as it had done before. This particular one will never make it into a Sci-Fi movie. It died today. :o( Maybe it overdosed on the angel trumpet leaf or perhaps the bright light sent it into shock from which it never recovered. I kinda feel like a murderess ...
Can you send it in to A&M for ID? Your local Extension Office might do that for you. We would....
I gotta know what it is!!!!
It is a mighty strange critter. . .I got nowhere trying to figure out what it is, either. I was thinking beetle larva/nymph too.
I think I'll try googling soferdig's 'ugly icky porkypine looking bug'.
I wonder where Night_Bloom is, he or she has come through on some real hard ones, or kennedy h
ceejaytown, that's a good idea. I'll have to check into it.
claypa, I hadn't thought of googling soferdig's 'ugly icky porkypine looking bug'. :o)
Is the "head" really attached to the body, like with a neck? Are there eyes - I see what looks like one antenna. Are there two? It just seems like a composite of several insects - like something one would make in a science class - or out of legos..LOL Is it possible that the back end is what is left of a wooly bear, and the front (head) is actually something that is eating the front end of a woolly bear, or something like that? Did you ever actually see it feed on the brug? I've never had a caterpillar or any other plant feeding insect die when I brought it in, as long as it had food. Yours did - or was it already dead and not recognized as such? Maybe we need to think outside the box.
ceejaytown, the head is attached to the body by what appears to be a very, very short neck that is black on top and goldish underneath. There are 2 eyes. It is one insect - nothing eating a woolly bear. I was right by and its head was over an area of the leaf that had been eaten and it appeared to be eating the leaf. I never took a photo of its mouth in actual contact with the leaf because it was difficult to get the right angle. It was alive when I brought it in; however, it seemed to gradually just quit moving and died. It appeared to go into shock after all of the photos I took with the flash on. After I finish covering my plants and bringing some in due to the ice strom that is expected here tomorrow, I will take some photos of the deceased critter.
I wonder if some parasite got to it, which might account for the emaciated looking top half of what might be a caterpillar....Can you tell that you've got me bugged? LOL!!
ceejay, i have this picture of you sitting in a room filled with books all over the floor and you're flipping pages like a crazy woman....i'll bet i'm right on the money too! LOL
trackin - You know me way too well!!!!
LOL
It looks to me in all the pictures that it is an arachnid not insect. IE 8 legs. But the closer I look at the first picture the front six legs are healthy and the back legs necrotic. It is a Metamorphose going badly. We call it a distocia in veterinary medicine. "Difficulty in being born" This nymph was only partially out of its exoskeleton and got to eating breakfast too soon and with all the flash distractions got stuck. Poor victum of Dave's Gardeners lack of having a garden to spend their time on. LOL
Wait. Not arachnid - you agree there? That was just a preliminary guess, correct? Then onto metamorphosis. Are you thinking it was just going to another instar and got stuck? Trying to shed its exoskelton and something went awry - perhaps caused by the photo flashes? Or perhaps it was preparing for pupation and the same thing happened. Pupation not completed. Now it wouldn't be eating at that stage, if all was normal of course. Methinks you might be onto something here.
I once was the lucky mom who got a whole bunch of silk worm larvae after a preschool teacher was through with them, and sent them on home with the kids, who were delighted! The other moms didn't want them - so I got all of them!! (I got even many years later when I sent home the slugs after using them for teaching purposes. Kids loved them - not at sure that was the case with the parents...) I was the crazy mom driving through the neighborhood at night, grabbing handfuls of mulberry leaves from overhanging branches on others' properties, just to feed these silk worm kids. Finally they all pupated - except for one. It metamorphosed without a pupa case. The resulting adult was chunkier than normal, with distorted short wings - kinda weird looking. Before I could see what would happen, my cat jumped up on the counter and ate all of them one night.
But I can see from that experience, how that could be the case here. Thanks, Soferdig.
I had pondered upon the thought that the front end of the body is covered with parasitic insects: however, the critter is deceased and the front part of the body still looks the same. There has been no migration of other insects fom the critter. I have perused all of the photos of beetles in the BugGuide (over 500 pages) with no luck. To examine the critter more closely and from different angles, I removed it from the leaf. Its feet were stuck to a fine web-like material and I had to pry them loose. Upon further thought, the criiter may have been dead when I first photographed it and I just thought I saw it moving.
This message was edited Jan 15, 2007 10:09 AM
I know what it is !! It's the molted skin of a caterpillar and you are looking at the head capsule that was shed along with the skin. It may have been a Giant Leopard moth caterpillar. You can actually soak it in water and let it soften up and then straighten it out to see it better. But be careful because the head capsule will fall off easily.
Here's a pic of a Giant Leopard moth caterpillar.......
Here is a different kind of caterpillar, the Hickory Horned Devil, that just molted his skin. You can see the pile of shed skin and the head captule which fell off of his head after he had started walking out of his skin. With the molted skin that you found the head capsule stayed attached as one piece.
Is'nt nature unbelievable! These are some awsome pictures that makes me want to keep my eyes open for that part of the world we often don't really notice or look for. That Hickory Horned Devil is so neat.
Cuckoo
Thanks Cuckoo, and yes nature really is unbelievable. I think Hickory Horned Devils are the neatest caterpillar there is ! My book says "Largest and most formidable appearing eastern forest insect."
Anyway, I wanted to add this pic to show a Giant Leopard moth pupa with the shed caterpillar skin still attached. Doesn't it look like htop's pics above.....minus the pupa that is?
DiOhio, it surely does. But htop's critter . . . had that gold head... and was moving around... this is weird...
Ah - but she later said that she have been mistaken. That perhaps it wasn't moving at all....I think DiOhio hit on something, or perhaps it was a moult gone wrong as in never completed. Perhaps it was beginning its pupal stage and something went wrong. Or perhaps that is what a perfectly normal moult of that caterpillar looks like...I just wonder about the hairs remaining in the latter case.
I think i can solve your problem... This can only be one thing. it is an alien
OK Just kidding. Being a dork...
That truly is the wierdest thing I have ever seen. I live in Canada and we don't get funky wierd bugs up here. I used to work in a garden centre and was the bug ID lady but this baffles me. All I can say is that if it was larger it would make a cool brooch for your lapel. (Marketing stragedy)
In my neighbourhood we have a government agency that can take soil, leafdisease,insect samples and ID them. Is there anything equivalant to that in TX? Thats what I would do. WE NEED ANSWERS...Enquiring minds want to know!
htop - Did you ever send it off to A&M?
