Thursday 27 July 2017

Mysterious Caterpillar Identified - Drury's Jewel

Recalling on this particular weird looking caterpillar which I spotted during our rainforest walk with Mandy in June 2016, I finally got someone who has pointed out this species for me.
Refer to my previous blog post here: Nature Guides' Day Out


This someone is Chiang who is an orchid expert, butterflies enthusiast, landscape designer and many more. He is multi-talented!

It should be the caterpillar of Drury's Jewel Cyclosia papilionaris based on the similarity patterns from my image with images from other webpage.

Colourful caterpillar


Thank you so much for your help, Chiang! Chiang doesn't wish to have his full name to be posted here and so I will leave as it is.   

From the google images, I came to this interesting website which documented about the caterpillar been parasitised by an entomopathogenic nematode worm. Link to Drury's Jewel

And from here, I learned about this terminology, entomopathogenic . Prefix Entomo means insect and pathogenic means disease. Entomopathogenic nematodes are group of thread worms that live and eat inside of an insect, larva or caterpillar causing slow death. Some of these entomopathogenic organisms can be beneficial as biological control of the population of pests in agriculture or harmful insects. Why the need to use the current harmful pesticides for our vegetables and other crops when these organisms can do the job?

I will now search for this moth!

References:
Hoskins. A, Learn about Butterfiles: the complete guide to the world of butterflies and months, www.learnaboutbutterflies/Caterpillar%20-%20Cyclosia%20papilionaris.htm, 27 Jul 2017.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entomopathogenic_nematode

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