For the identification of insects and other fauna and flora of South Africa.
Wednesday, October 2, 2013
White Monkey Moth (Phiala incana) caterpillar
Family Eupterotidae
This was the most amazing sight. In Addo Elephant Park where I found them, I at first thought
it was spiderwebs between the small bushes as each one was very large, about
40-50cm in diameter but on closer inspection found they belonged to the
caterpillars of the White Monkey Moth.
There were thousands of caterpillars all over
the place and one could not ride or walk without tramping on them.
There they call them Karoo Tented-caterpillars.
The caterpillars crawl along the lines spread out from the
main nest in order to get to other host plants which were dead as it was winter
but looks like it might be one of the Senicio species of plant.
Some of these web extensions were about 2m in length.
2 comments:
I noticed the "spider webs" in Addo the other day and also thought that was what there were. Very interesting.
Amazing. We have tent caterpillars here that I see in the aspen.
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