Sunday, 2 September 2012

Known Unknowns

It's been a bit quiet on the blogging front for the last week or so as we've been away on holiday, visting friends who own a house on Skye (I've blogged about previous holiday's to Skye before). Holidays always produce lots of fodder for blog posts and this one was no different.

I still have to sort through all the photos, but I'll start with two caterpillars and to paraphrase Donald Rumsfeld, there is a known known and a known unknown.


Lets start with the known known. I believe that the photo on the left shows a Knot Grass (Acronicta rumicis) caterpillar, although if you think I'm wrong please feel free to correct me. The photo on the right, however, is a known unknown. In other words I have no idea what it is and any suggestions would be more than welcome.
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posted by Mark @ 15:59
2 September 2012 at 20:37 , Scriptor Senex said...

I think the one on the right may be a young Fox Moth caterpillar.

3 September 2012 at 07:17 , ADRIAN said...

I thought Fox Moth caterpillars had orange stripes. I have seen these on Anglesey....I couldn't identify them then. Oak Eggars maybe.

3 September 2012 at 18:59 , Mark said...

Ah, looking at my book again it's definitely a Fox Moth caterpillar -- not sure how I missed that the first time.

My book shows two pictures and it would seem that to start with the caterpillar how very few hairs and the orange strips are clearly visible, but as it grows it gets hairs and the strips fade away.

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