We made a fun discovery in the gardens recently – this fun and fuzzy little caterpillar, which we later identified as Spilosoma virginica, or the Yellow Bear caterpillar.
Yellow Bear caterpillars are the larvae of the Virginia Tiger Moth, a fairly small white moth in the Arctiini family. This family’s most famous member is probably the Woolly Bear caterpillar, larva of the Isabella Tiger Moth (Pyrrharctia isabella).
A few other Yellow Bear facts:
- Yellow Bear caterpillars can vary in color from very dark to almost white, like this one, but will always lack stripes or tufts of different colored setae (hairs).
- They are safe to handle, if you can manage to catch one – Yellow Bears move extremely quickly.
- Like many moth larva, it has a widely varied diet; we found ours on Russelia equisetiformis.
- In the south, they produce three or more generations per year. In the north, they generally produce two generations and overwinter as larva down in the leaf litter.
These are beautiful. I have a question that I couldn't find on the MOSI website. Does the price of MOSI include the butterfly gardens? Or can you go in the gardens seperate? I was thinking of heading up there in the next couple of weekends.
ReplyDeleteThe BioWorks Butterfly Garden, Backwoods Forest Preserve and Richard T. Bowers Historic Tree Grove are free to the public and all guests at MOSI.
ReplyDeleteMOSI does have a nominal paid parking fee and admission fees for the museum exhibits, films, and other special events.
Hope to see you soon!
I just found one of these on one of the leaves of my peppermint plant. I clipped off the leaf to safely remove it and it does not want to let go, lol!
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