Recently a friend showed me a hickory horned devil caterpillar, a monstrous caterpillar and the scariest I had ever seen. The Regal Moth or Hickory Horned Devils are commonly found on walnut, hickories, persimmon, sweetgum, and sumacs. It’s said that larvae grow faster and larger on persimmon.
The moth lays up to four tiny yellowish eggs on the upper surface of the host plant that hatch 7–10 days later. After hatching, the small black larva feeds at night and sleeps the day, using leaf tops as hammocks and masquerading as a bird dropping. The larva molts four times, enlarging with each molt and changing colors, wearing shades of yellow, brown, and bright orange before the final coat of green. It spends about forty summer days devouring foliage.
The larva, mistaken for bird poop, mushrooms into the largest North American caterpillar at six inches long and fat as a hot dog with a massive reddish-orange headpiece of horns with black spikes up to an inch long. Enhancing fear are two long and two shorter red spikes protruding from the next two segments, and four short black spikes on the abdominal segments. Big black spots on the body mimic eyes. Chickens shy away, but other birds devour them. Pick them up without fear, but picking them up is the hardest part.
The caterpillar’s spikes neither pierce nor sting; its bright colors are just for show; and its ruse of rearing its horned head and vibrating violently to create a buzz resembling that of a rattlesnake’s is but a scam.
Before pupation, the larva expels its gut and changes color from green to turquoise. They crawl down the host and burrow in the ground five or six inches deep and pupate in a earthen chamber, rather than spinning a cocoon. The devils are transfigured into glossy brown pupae, which will spend winter entombed like mummies. Some pupae overwinter two seasons.
From the tomb arises the adult regal moth, giant cousin of the silk moth and the largest moth north of Mexico. When the orange veined, greenish-gray wings dotted with creamy yellow are smoothed open, they measure up to six inches across. After mating, the female spends her life laying eggs. Adults have vestigal mouths, mouthparts are reduced, and they do not eat and only live about a week. It’s a midsummer moth, on the wing from late June through August with larvae peaking August through October. Remember, they may look creepy, but they’ve got nothing.
Pupae
The Regal Moth
It’s not easy being a caterpillar. They have the misfortune of being rather defenseless and an easy dinner for other animals. With this in mind, many have evolved various means of protection such as the elaborate camouflage of the Saturniid Moth Caterpillar.
Moth Silhouettes
Kingdom Animal
Phylum Arthropod
Class Insect
Order Lepidoptera
Moths, setting their heart on a star, set their heart on a lamp instead – with no burned wings. The Navajo call their wild behavior of flying into flames “moth madness.”
The study of butterflies and moths is known as lepidoptery. Biologists that specialize in them are called lepidopterists. There are 165,000 species of Lepidoptera: 150,000 moths and 15,000 butterflies. There are over 11,000 species of moths in the U.S. – more than all the bird and mammal species in North America. Moths outnumber butterflies by more than 10 to 1. Moths can range in size from smaller than a pencil tip to bigger than a songbird.
Moth larvae, or caterpillars, make cocoons from which they emerge grown with wings. Some caterpillars dig holes in the ground to live until they are ready to turn into adult moths.
Moths (and their relatives, the butterflies) are the only group of insects that have scales covering their wings, though there are a few exceptions. They have scaly wings that are layered like shingles. They differ from other insects by their ability to coil up their feeding tube (the proboscis). Moths can usually be distinguished from butterflies by their antennae, which are typically threadlike or feathery; butterflies have club-tipped antennae.
Moths are important pollinators. While some moths are major agricultural pests, many are important pollinators. Their hairy bodies make them great pollinators.
Moth-pollinated flowers tend to be fragrant and white, allowing nocturnal moths to easily find flowers after dark. Moths practice mutualism and are important pollinators of night flowers. Some moths pollinate by day like the Hummingbird moths, feeding on a variety of flowers, including bee balm, honeysuckle and verbena.
Moths have a proboscis, a rolled tube for sucking. Some moths suck nectar and others don’t eat at all. The adult Luna moth doesn’t have a mouth. After it emerges from its cocoon, it lives for about a week. Its sole mission is to mate and lay eggs. The Luna moth grows to a wingspan of four and a half inches. Most moth adults do not eat at all. Most like the Luna, Polyphemus, Atlas, Prometheus, Cecropia, and other large moths do not have mouths. When they do eat, moths drink nectar.
Moths are active at night, have less bright colors than butterflies, hold their wings flat at rest, and have threadlike or featherlike antennae. Moths have hooks on the hind wings that attach them to the front wings.
Moths use pheromones and chemical scents to locate mates. A male moth can smell a female more than 7 miles away. They detect odor molecules using their antennae with hair like scent receptors that allow them to detect a single molecule of a female moth’s sex hormone. They have a complete metamorphosis: egg – larva – pupa – adult. They deposit eggs on a plant food source that the larva will eat.
Most moth caterpillars are harmless, have camouflage, a bad smell, and a few have stinging hairs, a bad taste and vivid patterns. Moths often match the backgrounds on which they rest. Moths are great mimics. To avoid being eaten, some moths look like less palatable insects, such as wasps, tarantulas, and the praying mantis. Some moths even mimic bird droppings.
Caterpillars molt. An instar is the time between molts. Different moths have different numbers of instars and molts. At the end of the last larval instar, the caterpillar changes to a pupa in a silken cocoon. They remain there several months or may winter over before it emerges and pumps fluid into its wings to fly.
In some parts of the world, moths are a major food source for people. More than 90 percent of people in some African countries eat moth and butterfly caterpillars. Caterpillars are packed with protein and healthy fats, and research shows that 100 grams of these insects provide more than 100 percent of the daily requirement of some vital minerals, such as potassium, calcium, zinc. and iron.
Because of their abundance, moths are major players at the bottom of the food chain. Caterpillars are one of the most important things that moths offer in the ecosystem as food for everything else. They’re a huge source of food for bats. Some moths have evolved defenses against winged predators. Tiger moths produce ultrasonic clicking sounds that jam bat sonar. Most nesting birds rear their young on insects, and caterpillars are a significant part of their food. Nocturnal insectivores feed on moths; these include some bats, some species of owls and other species of birds. Moths are eaten by some species of lizards, cats, dogs, rodents, and some bears. Moth larvae are vulnerable to being parasitized by Ichneumonidae. There is evidence that ultrasound in the range emitted by bats causes flying moths to make evasive maneuvers because bats eat moths. The frequencies trigger a reflex action that causes it to drop a few inches in flight to evade attack. Tiger moths emit clicks which foil bats’ echolocation.
Several moths in the family Tineidae are pests because their larvae eat fabric from natural proteinaceous fibers such as wool or silk. Repel them by the scent of wood from juniper and cedar, by lavender, or by other natural oils.
Some moths are farmed. The most notable of these is the silkworm, the larva of the domesticated moth Bombyx mori. It is farmed for silk used to build its cocoon.
MORE MOTH FACTS:
The Atlas Moth, of Southeast Asia, considered the largest in the world, has a wingspan of nearly a foot. Their wingspans are amongst the largest, reaching over 25 cm or 10 in. Females are larger and heavier. They have a wingspan of up to 12 inches (31 cm), giving them the biggest wingspan. The Royal Walnut Moth has a wingspan of about 4.5 inches.
The Death’s-head Hawk moths are distinguishable by the vaguely human skull-shaped pattern of markings on the thorax. They can emit a loud squeak if irritated that is produced by expelling air from the pharynx and by flashing the brightly colored abdomen in a further attempt to deter predators. Species are observed raiding beehives of different species of honeybees for honey; A. atropos attacks colonies of the Western honey bee, Apis mellifera. They move about in hives without being disturbed because they mimic the scent of the bees.
Peppered moths rest on trees during the day, and are preyed on by birds. The female lays about 2,000 pale-green ovoid eggs about 1 mm in length into crevices in bark with her ovipositor. The caterpillar is a twig mimic, varying in color between green and brown.
Emperor gum moth caterpillars mature and change color each time they shed their skin (five stages in the caterpillar’s appearance). The grown caterpillars are found on the highest branches of the host tree where leaves are youngest and easiest to digest. When the caterpillar is fully mature it spins a dark brown silken cocoon on a branch that usually has a leaf to protect it.
The most notable feature of the Polyphemus moth (sphinx moth) is its large, purplish eyespots on its two hind wings. The sphinx moth caterpillar rears up if disturbed.
Sphinx Moth
Polyphemus Caterpillar
The Gypsy moth is classified as a pest. Its larvae consume the leaves of over 300 species of trees, shrubs and plants. It is one of the most destructive pests of hardwood trees in the eastern United States. Gypsy moth larvae prefer oak trees, but may feed on many species of trees and shrubs, both hardwood and conifers.
The Indian Meal Moth or flour moth has common names such as North American High-flyer, Weevil Moth, Pantry Moth, flour moth or “grain moth. Its caterpillars are known as “wax worms”, but not the wax worms bred as animal food. They are a common grain-feeding pest found around the world, feeding on cereals and similar products.
The codling moth is known as an agricultural pest, their larva being the common apple worm or maggot.. It is found almost worldwide. It attacks pears, walnuts, and other tree fruits. Light brown apple moth adults are variable in color and may be confused with other leafroller moths and similar species.
Silkmoths – The silkworm is the caterpillar of the domesticated silkmoth, Bombyx mori (“silkworm of the mulberry tree”). It is an economically important insect, being a primary producer of silk. A silkworm’s preferred food is white mulberry leaves, but it may eat the leaves of any mulberry tree as well as the Osage orange. It is dependent on humans for its reproduction, as it does not occur naturally in the wild. Sericulture (breeding silkworms for the production of silk) has been done for 5,000 years in China, from where it spread to Korea and Japan, and later to India and the West. The silkworm was domesticated from the wild silk moth.
Wax worms are the caterpillar larvae of wax moths. They are medium-white caterpillars with black-tipped feet and small, black or brown heads. They live as nest parasites in bee colonies and eat cocoons, pollen, and shed skins of bees. They chew through beeswax, thus the name. Beekeepers consider wax worms a pest. Galleria mellonella (the greater wax moths) don’t attack the bees directly but feed on the wax.
Vampire moths of Asia feed on the eye liquids of cattle, deer, and elephants.
The bean moth lays egg inside seeds, the caterpillar eats the seed food and develops the Pupa, the Mexican jumping bean.
The hummingbird moth and hawkmoth are strong flyers active day or night.
The wooly bear caterpillar tells the weather. If the brown band is wide it will be a mild Winter! In the Arctic, moths spend their time mostly as caterpillars. The Arctic wooly-bear only molts 6 times over 14 years and spends only a brief time as an adult.
The inchworms of the geometer moth are found where oak trees grow.
The owlet moth is a winter moth and feeds on sap from injured trees. They shelter in leaf litter. They shiver to generate heat and have hairy insulation.
The CECROPIA moth has a 6” wingspan.
