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Mopane Worms
Gonimbrasia belina
-6.79836, 39.2195
Field Notes
Description:
Huge gooey spiney dangerous looking caterpillars. About 2cm fat and 10-15cm long. Mostly a pale blue with red and yellow accents and very prominent black spines. Voracious eaters, ate the entire top foliage out of the mango tree before we got them under control. Fast movers.
Habitat:
All kinds of scrub and bush apparently, particularly the Mopane Tree, hence the name. The references state this moth caterpillar as being South african, but these ones were in Tanzania.
Notes:
These are awesome caterpillars, and exciting spotting, but rather devastating to the garden. At the time we didn't know what they were, we just shook the tree to get them off it and collected as many as we could and threw them over the fence :) (where there was an appropriate wasteland that they could eat). Now it appears they are Mopane worms, caterpillar of the Mopane Moth, and a delicacy to locals. please correct if this is wrong.
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