Choral reef

Identification - Limacodidae, Setora nitens - Coconut Nettle caterpillar.

I had forgotten all about adjusting the eye piece yesterday and when I focused up on my first subject, a tiny fly - WOE! I thought it was going to bite me. Today's safari was a joy, being able to see my subjects sooo clearly.

I found the caterpillar again, on a banana leaf, the same species of caterpillar that I blipped on the 9th, but this time it was a later instar. Like most bugs, caterpillars shed their skin and advance through a number of stages called instars. Quite often in technical bug discussions, you will read '5th instar' and this is what they are referring to. Different bugs have different numbers of instars before they reach maturity.

Sometimes the instar change involves a color (this blip) or even a shape change. In the case of the acherontia caterpillar that I blipped on the 7th, the final instar goes from a bright green to a mottled brown, as the caterpillar no longer feeds and looks for a branch to form its pupa, requiring a change in camouflage - clever stuff.

Here you see the rear end of the nettle caterpillar, displaying its array of poisonous spines, which can inflict 24hrs of pain in anyone daft enough to pick the little cutie up. The tips of the bristles step down in diameter at the tips and break off very easily, remaining in your skin as an irritant and a poison.

Dave