I don’t know what this insect is, but I’m sure one of my readers does. But first you have to see it! It took me a while to spot it, but of course that’s why it has evolved.
Have a gander (from Wimp.com’s photos):
h/t: Matthew Cobb, as usual!
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- David Brooks: The brain is not the mind wp.me/ppUXF-nwU 3 hours ago
36 Comments
Jerry, what with you blowing my mind all the time, it’s a wonder I have any mind left at all….
b&
moving slightly to the side could be a costly mistake…
Some kind of Prominent Caterpillar?
Amazing
Clever Gravatar you’ve got there.
If only they’d gotten hypocrisy spelled correctly, it would have been perfect.
The gravatar has one ‘p’ too few to denote the rule of the Houyhnhnm which might follow on from excessive use of the “Religion” product.
(“hippocracy,” for level-3 and lower punsters)
Omniscient internet tells me it is the caterpillar of the ‘common baron’ (how’s that for an oxymoron?) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euthalia_aconthea
It looks translucent.
Reminds me of those hairy-legged freaks we saw growing up in New Hampshire. I can tell you they had a bit of brown coloration, they were nearly invisible too and they delivered a horrible bite.
Will try to look up the name.
(I realize it’s probably not related but is strikingly similar).
Gypsy moth?
Nice thought, there’s a slim chance it’s a caterpillar but these bugs are flat like the ones in the photo and quite tiny (or maybe I had only seen younguns)
That sounds more like the common house centipede.
Ha! No, I am unfortunately very familiar with centipedes. This bug was smaller than the one in the photo but very similar and only seen in the woods. That photo looks nothing like a centipede.
Try this web page, Amelie.
http://www.ca.uky.edu/entomology/entfacts/ef003.asp
The caterpillar of the Buck Moth in the top photo somewhat resembles that of the Common Baron we see here.
Yes, the common baron answer is correct: Euthalia aconthea: http://www.butterflycircle.com/checklist%20V2/CI/index.php/start-page/startpage/showbutterfly/71
As a photographer and naturalist, I am a little suspicious of this one I am afraid. I downloaded the photo, opened it in Photoshop and saw that the pixels on the caterpillar are way smaller on the rest of the leaf. I cannot say for sure that this picture has been doctored but none of my photos have this strange pattern of different pixel size. Nonetheless, I wager a bottle of single malt whiskey that there has been a little digital tinkering with this photo. Ain’t natural, as some might say.
I do hate caterpillar propaganda.
Ha! Great sense of humor.
It does look a bit peculiar, but it looks the sort of peculiarity that is “right” for some Moire-type effect. Or someone has (unwisely) applied a soft-focus effect to some parts of the image but not others.
Difficult to tell without access to the original image, as posted “for publication”. Otherwise, sites do have a distressing habit of doing things to photos, even if only to try to reduce their storage requirements, fit images to pre-defined aspect ratios, etc.
http://www.butterflycircle.com/checklist%20V2/CI/mugshots/Euthalia%20aconthea%20gurda/earlystages/caterpillar/Euthalia%20aconthea%20gurda%20(Baron)%20-%20LC%20Goh.jpg
This is from the link that Beth posted at #8. It looks pretty similar to the photo Prof. Coyne put up. Could you please try your magic again and assess if you get the same anomalies you earlier observed? Just curious.
Crap… sorry, duh… the link is too long. If you please, use Beth’s link at #8 and find the little critter’s mug shot. Tnx.
http://www.butterflycircle.com/checklist%20V2/CI/index.php/start-page/startpage/showbutterfly/71
Next time use tiny url or similar to shorten the link http://tinyurl.com/
PS Comment should read “are smaller on the caterpillar than on the rest of the leaf”. Try the download and see for yourself.
I see what you mean. But it doesn’t look like it’s been pasted in there. Maybe some specks that would make it easier to see it have been Photoshopped out? I don’t recall what it’s called, but I’ve watched a friend take dust specks and negative defects out of vintage photos for me with that function.
Reblogged this on Mark Solock Blog.
Can’t add any insight on the entomological (or photoshop) side but this immediately reminded me of the artist Liu Bolin who does some amazimg stuff camouflaging himself: http://www.designboom.com/weblog/cat/10/view/19961/liu-bolin-lost-in-art-at-eli-klein-gallery.html
Saw that months ago on my G+ science stream.
Lots of insect lovers there, including me. This animated GIF puts the cat in caterpillar: http://cheezburger.com/4826556416
It looks like the insect is one with the leaf!
You are nominated for the One Lovely Blogger Award for your science writing, at: http://jjbrownauthor.weebly.com/1/post/2012/09/news-today-from-10-lovely-blogs.html
It looks like the insect is one with the leaf. What an amazing adaptation.
For your science writing you are nominated for the One Lovely Blogger Award at; http://jjbrownauthor.weebly.com/1/post/2012/09/news-today-from-10-lovely-blogs.html
Absolutely wonderful bit of camouflage. The way the leaf midrib and veins are reproduced is fabulous. (Although to this old hand entomologist it was pretty obvious, it will be well protected from its actual natural enemies!)
That is astonishing!
Correction and apology to the photographer—with closer inspection I now realize I was wrong to suspect digital manipulation. The pixels match–what threw me is the very unusual background color of the body that is so uniform in color that it looked like the pixels on the body were tiny. Perhaps this funkiness is part of the camouflage? Fortunately I owe myself a bottle of whiskey, not a reader.
Wise choice.
Picking the bottle in front o’ ye, rather than the frontal lobotomy, that is, of course….
…sorry…couldn’t resist….
b&
Can’t have you consuming a reader, can we? I recommend whisky rather than whiskey. Must be single malt and at least ten years old – the rest is a matter of taste.
While searching for a larger version of the image, I discovered that the Wimp.com link in the OP is broken.
It points to a nonexistent place here on the WEIT Site.