I was walking down a trail through the woods a few days ago and heard a rustling in the leaves on the ground. I looked expecting to find a rodent or similar but found this caterpillar probably getting ready to pupate. It’s by far the largest one I’ve ever seen, dwarfing the Catalpa caterpillars that are common around here. I’d like to know what he’s going to grow up to be. The only really large moths I’ve seen around here are Luna moths and - once or twice - Cecropia moths. It doesn’t look like either of their larvae. I went browsing around on bugguide.net but didn’t stumble upon anything that looked similar. Lepidoptera is a huge order. So I’m turning to you guys. By the way, there’s a small eyespot on its tail in case that isn’t obvious from these less-than-spectacular pictures.
Perhaps a pandorus sphinx caterpillar?
That certainly looks like it. I’m not going to rule out the Achemon Sphinx of the same genus either. That narrows it down enough to make me happy. I find it odd that that moth looks about the same size as the Catalpa Sphinx but the caterpillar is - as I said - about twice the size. I guess you can’t judge a moth by its caterpillar.
That’s not exactly “enormous.”
Book title!
Just wait until he’s started on the piece of chocolate cake (and ice-cream cone and pickle and salami and lolipop …)
He was twice as large as any caterpillar I’ve ever seen. I’d call that enormous.
But you’ve skipped right over large, giant, huge, etc. To me, an enormous caterpillar is one capable of eating a small cottage.