Do all caterpillars turn into butterflies or moths?

Big, fat, green caterpillars with horns at the end tend to be members of the hawkmoth family. It could be a lime or privet hawkmoth, or an eyed hawkmoth (I think). Google 'hawkmoth caterpillar' - you should get enough images to be able to identify it.

Moths and butterflies lay their eggs on the foodplants of their caterpillars. The caterpillar is not mobile enough to seek out alternative foodsources. If the caterpillar is on a much loved plant, and you do not want to see it damaged, move the caterpillar to an alternative foodplant. It is important to correctly identify the species of hawkmoth, as the caterpillar will starve if placed on the wrong plant.

All true caterpillars do turn into moths and butterflies. There is really no hard and fast rule about what the difference is between them. Generally moths are night fliers, while butterflies are active during the day. There are some day-flying moths however, just to confuse things.

Other creatures have immature stages which can be mistaken for caterpillars but are called other names, e.g. maggots, leather-jackets, grubs etc. They are collectively known as larvae, and will pupate in order to undergo metamorphosis before reaching their adult, sexually mature stage (sawfly, cranefly, beetle). Other insects have immature stages called nymphs. These resemble the adult creatures, and will not need to pupate in order to reach maturity.

Moths are absolutely fascinating, and are seriously declining. Please look after your caterpillar.

Caterpillar Turns Into Butterfly

Either. Some are moth larvae, and some are butterfly larvae. Sorry, but I'm not sure which one you've got there.

Try doing a Yahoo search of "butterflies" together with the area or state you live in. I had good luck a few years back identifying a caterpillar I'd found by searching "Orange County butterflies." My caterpillar was orange with black spines and ended up being a Mourning Cloak butterfly, identified on a local butterfly website. Hope your research is fruitful!

This Site Might Help You.

RE:

Do all caterpillars turn into butterflies or moths?

I have this big fat caterpillar on a tree. Its light green in colour and has a horn at the end of its tail. It is the biggest caterpillar i have ever seen. I wonder if it will turn into a borer or something beautiful with wings.

get David Wagner's new book, Caterpillars of Eastern North America. So far it is the ONLY comprehensive book about caterpillars that has been written. You can get it on Amazon.com, so far I have only seen it in a few book stores. There are a lot of books about butterflies, few about moths, but no other about their complete lifestyles and their caterpillars.

What you found would be a Sphinx moth caterpillar or horn worm; there are many kinds, including the notorious tomato hornworm, the tobacco horn worm, and 30 pages of others in that book. They turn into large moths; gray and brown with rosy pink underwings, and others including the clearwing hummingbird moth.

Do a search for HAWKMOTHS, I think it's one of that species.

butterflies