BIG Black Caterpillar

[Pierre A Plauzoles]

In a previous article, dyanega at mono.icb.ufmg.br (Doug Yanega) says:

>>In a previous article, 73530.317 at CompuServe.COM (John Lemen) says:
>>
>>>Searched all over the net, but couldn't find any info on a large
>>>black caterpillar - approx 3" long and .5" diameter. It had
>>>bristles on each segment - resembled a bottle brush ! We live in
>>>Omaha, NE a couple hundred yards from the Missouri River; lot has
>>>many trees, mostly bur oaks.
>>
>>Do you have any catalpas in the area?  The caterpillar of the catalpa
>>sphinx comes close to that description, as does the white-lined sphinx,
>>which feeds on a large number of plants.  If it *was* hairy, maybe it was
>>a tiger moth?  "Black and three inches long" makes me think of those two
>>sphingids, but they are hairless (at least their hairs are microscopic,
>>if they have any), but you say "bristles", which stumps me.  Maybe it was
>>a saturniid?  Some of them get pretty big and some do feed on oak.
>
>That sounds like the larva of Hypercompe scribonia, a big leopard-spotted
>tiger moth - there's nothing else around that looks as much like a bottle
>brush as that caterpillar.

Now that makes much more sense thas what I was speculating, and also 
shows how well I know the arctiids (tiger moths), namely, not very well.  

Thanks, Doug.  One learns something every day, if only one is willing to 
do so - and the opportunity *always* shows up, but we are not always 
receptive to it.
-- 
Pierre Plauzoles   ae779 at lafn.org
Canoga Park, California