| 4th instar caterpillar.
The pink saddle mark is prominent and the caterpillar feeds most of the
day. This species is an "untidy" eater, chewing half a leaf and
then going to another fresh leaf before it finishes the current one. In
some cases, it chews through the stem and kills off a few leaves in the
process. Quite wasteful as far as sustainability of the food plant is concerned!
The caterpillar grows up to about 8 cm at this stage, as it feeds voraciously on the food plant. |
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| Ventral view
of the 4th instar caterpillar. The caterpillar is heavy and grips tightly
to the slim and flimsy vines of the food plant. In this slide, we can see
the caterpillar feeding on the tip of a stem after almost finishing a young
leaf at the bottom of the slide.
When disturbed, the caterpillar also extracts its osmeterium, a pair of forked tubercles from the back of its head. This is meant to scare off would-be attackers. |
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