Catalpa sphinx
The catalpa sphinx is a brown hawk moth with a dark band around its middle. Its caterpillars are much more colorful than the moth, yellow with a black stripe and black dots. They live on catalpa trees.
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Fun facts
A mother can lay 100 to 1000 eggs together under one leaf.
The caterpillars grow to about 5 centimetres long.
Catalpa trees can lose all their leaves to the caterpillars and still grow them back.
Fishermen love to use the caterpillars as bait for catching fish.
When it is ready to change, the caterpillar climbs down and buries itself in the ground.
Most asked questions about Catalpa sphinx
?Is the catalpa sphinx caterpillar harmful?
Not to people. It eats catalpa leaves, but the trees usually grow back healthy.
?What does the catalpa sphinx eat?
Its caterpillars eat the leaves of catalpa trees.
?How big is the catalpa sphinx?
The moth's wings span about 6 to 9 centimetres.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Ceratomia catalpae
- Named by
- Boisduval, 1875
- Group
- Moths
- Family
- Sphingidae
- Classification
- Insecta > Lepidoptera > Sphingidae
- Lives on
- North America
- Also known as
- Catawba worm
Where the facts come from
- Ceratomia catalpae (Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0): what it looks like, where it lives, what it eats, sizes and fun facts, retold in simple words.
- Picture by Patrick Coin ( Patrick Coin ). CC BY-SA 2.5, Wikimedia Commons. The round sticker of this bug is cut from the same picture.
If we got something wrong, sorry, we are bug fans, not a science journal. Tell us at [email protected] and we will fix it.
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