help identifying caterpillar please

zizz · #1 (**permalink**) 15-07-2010, 02:04 PM

found this morning in dorset, about 3inches long

was found on a tarmac path, would love to know how to care for it, but can't find any infor on the web!

Hedera · #2 (**permalink**) 15-07-2010, 02:13 PM

Maybe some kind of hawk moth?

zizz · #3 (**permalink**) 15-07-2010, 02:28 PM

I thought it misht be a puss moth but it seems to be alot darker - almost purple?

triops · #4 (**permalink**) 15-07-2010, 04:30 PM

Its a Puss Moth caterpillar. They change colour and get darker when they are wandering looking for somewhere to pupate. Give it a piece of bark or cork, a few square inches, and it will chew into it and form a hard camouflaged cocoon made of wood fragments in which to spend the winter.

k4t3 · #5 (**permalink**) 15-07-2010, 10:43 PM

Agree with Triops, they get a lot darker when about to pupate, and also get a hell of a lot nastier! The only time I found them to squirt the formic acid they are reported to was just prior to pupation (they used it to melt the netting on the container I kept them in!) but they pupated quite happily within corrigated cardboard rolls or even behind posters on a blown vinyl wallpaper..and emerged the nxt spring none the worse for wear!