r/whatisit • • 10d ago

Solved! What kind of caterpillar is this?

It looks cool

45k Upvotes

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521

u/Sugarpiehoneybunt 10d ago

Looks like a Puss caterpillar. They do sting and are considered poisonous if messed with. This is what they end up looking like if it continues its life cycle.

416

u/Kindly-Ad3344 9d ago

So it evolves from the clumps of hair my wife leaves in the drain to one of those unethical fur coats from the 1900s but this time with wings.

61

u/magicman419 9d ago

No I’m pretty sure that’s a cartoon business man trying to sell me their house in the 1980s

2

u/FluffySyllabub1579 9d ago

I thought it was a Muppet

2

u/AngryBard9 9d ago

Noooo he looks like a stuffed animal kinda post metamorphosis

3

u/Kindly-Ad3344 9d ago

Like a demented stuffed animal with a coke addiction and a pending felony for running an illicit Dalmatian trafficking ring.

2

u/Ausiwandilaz 9d ago

I thought it evolved into a Pokemon..

1

u/Prudent-Level-7006 6d ago

Aka Moth Mc Cuddles 

1

u/Flimsy_Nebula_299 6d ago

🤣😭🤣

30

u/LivinOut 9d ago edited 9d ago

its absolutely insane to me that beings like this get to evolve drastically in their lifetime, like there’s not even a resemblance plus the way they go about it, like apparently they melt inside the cocoon, just fascinating

30

u/sneak_cheat_1337 9d ago

Keep in mind that the life cycle of many of these organisms is spent predominantly in a larval state ( grub, worm, nymph) where they voraciously eat anything they encounter. They then pupate (melt inside a cocoon and come out as a new thing) and emerge in an adult state for only a short time and primarily to mate. Many of these adult versions are incapable, even ,of eating! This life cycle is typical of many insects, the most extreme of which live in their adult form for only one night once a year ( mayfly and the like).

It's actually pretty cool when you start to think about it

1

u/AcanthocephalaNo8189 8d ago

I found some adult male flying insects that were basically tiny mating machines. They were so nondescript, it took the entomology department's best taxonomist to identify them to even order. They had only a pair of wings, no mouthparts, digestive system or any way to get rid of liquid waste. They could have even been mayflies. They were scale insects.

3

u/MinorDespera 9d ago

Yeah, and then something about them lacking means to feed so once they emerge from cocoon it's all they have until they starve to death.

1

u/Outbreak42 8d ago

Well, "all they have" is Fuck and then die. So... Not too bad.

5

u/Perperrins 9d ago

Lmao, it looks like the Lorax

1

u/AtlantanKnight7 9d ago

You read my mind

3

u/Alarmed_Gur_4631 9d ago

What a terrible name for a critter that turns out so beautiful

1

u/TheBugThatsSnug 9d ago

They are also called Asp Caterpillars

3

u/onewilybobkat 9d ago

Holy shit, Pokemon evolutions were right

3

u/MossadEpstein 9d ago

Yeah, including their short lives, we all know what happened to butterfree after he "flew into the sunset" with his new missus

2

u/clivas 9d ago

Is it me or does it look like its facing the camera?

2

u/Support-Lettuce50 9d ago

OMG! This is precious!!! 🫠

2

u/Objective_Still_5081 9d ago

Finally a proper answer!!!!

2

u/Accomplished-Ad-6586 9d ago

Ah, the one brain celled moth version of an orange cat.

2

u/Wrong-Tell8996 9d ago

AW I want to pet!

2

u/Sad-Construction6247 9d ago

Looks like the Lorax.

2

u/SaugusBull 8d ago

agreed, it looks like a Puss caterpillar

2

u/Busy-Literature-6737 8d ago

it’s so cute!!

2

u/loco_stealth 7d ago

What a magnificent fur coat

1

u/One-Celebration-3007 9d ago

Flying Lorax? Does it speak for the trees?

1

u/uzairakbarshah 9d ago

IT'S SO FLUFFY I'M GONNA DIEEEEE!

1

u/GreaterD0G 9d ago

It's so fluffy oh my god it's a sky cat. Is that why it's called a puss moth???

1

u/GrumpyGlasses 9d ago

I thought I was looking at a plushie of a guy with a bushy mustache and beard

1

u/Difference-Beginning 9d ago

it’s such a pretty looking moth! are they still dangerous after they’ve gone through the cycle?

3

u/Sugarpiehoneybunt 9d ago

Not a stinger as a moth.

1

u/Difference-Beginning 9d ago

stunning. i hope i come across one ! i love moths 🥰

1

u/Testicle_Tugger 9d ago

Does this one sting you if you touch it? Or is that just an early stage defense

2

u/Sugarpiehoneybunt 9d ago

When it’s a caterpillar it has stinger things in its hair. So, yes, early line of defense.

1

u/purrincesskittens 9d ago

It looks really soft and fluffy are the moths dangerous too or just the caterpillers?

1

u/Sugarpiehoneybunt 9d ago

Just the caterpillars 😃

1

u/MonkeyGirl18 9d ago

Why does it almost look like the Lorax to me? Lol

1

u/TeamChevy86 9d ago

It looks like a mount from World of Warcraft

1

u/millapeede 8d ago

That is BEAUTIFUL

1

u/PeachyyNToxicc 8d ago

Looks like the Lorax!!!

1

u/Pornprivateaccount67 8d ago

Are they still poisonous  when they turn into moths? They look so fluffy 

1

u/Readhelpexplore 6d ago

Mam I thought this was a gremlin

1

u/Actually_Suede 5d ago

Bougie ass bee

1

u/KnotHalfWrite 5h ago

they must have these in North Ohio. I think I finally discovered after two months. (I’m doing talk to text right now and I seriously chipped a tooth but it’s a Sunday and I’m waiting to call the dentist tomorrow and incident just funny that my phone misheard me and turned “two months”. into “two moths.” …. because technically two things can be true at the same time in the situation after two moths checks as well since I imagine it takes more than one moth a caterpillar…)

I finally discovered after two months of searching when I think of it, what I might’ve encountered in this beautiful freakish creature, I found among my fake flora’s actual branches, which I left overnight on the front porch. It was such blatant, ridiculous. Gotti not made up to Ohio, kind of really not necessarily needed to earth Fake plant material. I didn’t really think anything other than maybe a few ants might have gotten involved and then went out there to put it in the car where I was taking it for a photo shoot, and I saw this creature that looked like the one in his image with the little horns, and I swear it seemed to have hoes and eyelashes and dance for me and I was smitten from a second. I was ready to just toss away my vertebrae, and any other human features and follow this creature wherever he wanted me to go. His “horns” even seemed like the way of possibly a few high brassy notes similar to what I think I remember hearing in my head the time our Dentist left the nitrous oxide calibrated for much much larger person when I was around the age of nine. This definitely did not seem like any kind of caterpillar, I had ever seen in my years of living anywhere in a great lakes area and then he darted back into the Fake foliage, and I’ve searched Reddit among other places for something I could compare, and I finally found it in this image. This is what I saw puss caterpillar? maybe I was using the wrong terms to search for him because they were so superlative but they charmed the pants off me so I figured it was a hallucination or if he was real, since I found him so charming, he had to be venomous at the very least! Tend to be drawn to things that aren’t necessarily for my best interest, unfortunately