An interesting bug

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HHADFan
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An interesting bug

Post by HHADFan »

This is an interesting little bug, the fourth one I've seen lately. In the picture, you can see it stretching out at the top - it looks like some sort of small caterpillar or worm. It's maybe 3/4 inch long by 3/8 inch wide except for the outlying strand to the right. When resting, it hangs on to a surface and lets it's body wave in the breeze and looks like a bit of garden trash. It moves very slowly, but this one was about two feet up a column when I took the picture and is now resting near the top of the column.

Its cocoon or shell looks built rather than grown, but the four I have seen all looked about the same. A beautifully random assortment of bits of grass.

My google-fu has not been strong enough to find out what these little guys are, so if anyone recognizes it, please post a link. It looks and acts absolutely harmless.

Thanks.



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STEVE G
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Re: An interesting bug

Post by STEVE G »

After a bit of hunt on the internet, it seems to be the caterpillar of a species of Bagworm Moth. They make a cocoon out of silk and local plant material that they can then move around with them:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bagworm_moth
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HHADFan
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Re: An interesting bug

Post by HHADFan »

Thanks, Steve. That doesn't look exactly the same, but closer than anything else I could find, and with 1350 species, there's certainly room for variation. In the numbers I'm seeing, they hardly look like a nuisance.

I noticed a number of small, white butterflies or moths in the front yard recently. Maybe those are adults. Interesting behavior.
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