Wildlife Spotting

Hi katara, caterpillars are truly amazing! It's true that most butterfly caterpillars have very little hair, some of them have a neat velvety coat, others have sparse hairs. For instance, some Skipper Butterfly caterpillars are covered in very short hairs: http://bugguide.net/node/view/380638/bgpage http://bugguide.net/node/view/29309/bgpage Moth caterpillars, on the other hand, can be very furry, slightly furry, spiked or even completely without hair. Here are a few examples, please click on the links to look at the pictures. These are all identified: All Sphinx Moth caterpillars have no hair but many of them have a cool big horn on their rear ends: http://bugguide.net/node/view/547811/bgpage http://bugguide.net/node/view/690242/bgpage Geometrid Moths are another group of moths with mostly hairless caterpillars. You might know them as inchworms: http://bugguide.net/node/view/714147/bgpage http://bugguide.net/node/view/366364/bgpage http://bugguide.net/node/view/334405/bgpage Silk Moth caterpillars like the one in this spotting also do not have hair, though many of them have spines and horns and such and they are very big!: http://bugguide.net/node/view/308148/bgpage http://bugguide.net/node/view/51428/bgimage http://bugguide.net/node/view/697884/bgimage There are many more examples I can give. If you can, see if you can find a field guide to caterpillars so you can see all the different types. You can also look through pages on Bugguide or several other websites with butterfly and moth info. Many of them have pictures of caterpillars as well. I hope this helps! Feel free to ask if you have any other questions.

Caterpillar moths are fuzzy Caterpillar butterflies are smooth

Cool pictures they are very interesting!

I agree with TheKittenBasket. This looks like a Promethea Moth caterpillar. Here is another link with more pictures and information: http://bugguide.net/node/view/22990