Velvetbean Caterpillar Moth

Velvetbean Caterpillar Moth

Anticarsia gemmatalis
OWLET MOTHS (Erebidae)

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The Velvetbean Caterpillar Moth has a wingspan of approximately 1.75 inches. The wing color is light brown to reddish-brown. The wings can be mostly unmarked with a weak stripe or heavily marked with dark brown spotting. The postmedian line continues across the hindwings. The caterpillar is highly variable in coloration. It is usually green but can also be gray, greenish brown or black. It has a broad white to orange spiracular stripe edged with white above and below. The head is green, yellow or orange. It has 4 pairs of abdominal prolegs and a pair of anal prolegs. It grows to about 1.5 inches.

 

This moth has been seen once at Fontenelle Forest Nature Center in late October 2016. This is largely a tropical moth that occurs in Central and South America and south Florida. No stages are cold hardy. The caterpillar overwinters in south Florida. The moth moves north during the summer and reaches as far as southern Canada by autumn

 

The primary host is soybean, but they will eat many other species including peanut, kudzu, velvetbean, cotton, black locust, lespedeza and white sweet clover. It can be a pest on soybeans in Florida and Georgia. When disturbed the caterpillar violently wiggles the abdominal prolegs. This is the only species in the genus Anticarsia in North America.

 

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