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Photo#93136
Stripped Morning Sphinx - Hyles lineata

Stripped Morning Sphinx - Hyles lineata
Skull Valley, AZ, USA (WSW of Prescott 10 miles), Yavapai County, Arizona, USA
November 5, 2006
Size: 2"to 2.5"
I was attracted to this one because it was darker then I am used to seeing here. Then I found the small eggs on it's head area & later found out that a parisitic wasp does this. Is this a general parisitism of caterpillars or is it species specific? Certainly the eggs are nearly the same as the color pattern on this caterpillar..

Images of this individual: tag all
Stripped Morning Sphinx - Hyles lineata Stripped Morning Sphinx - Hyles lineata

Highly variable species
Check the images in the guide near . That dark specimen pupated and eclosed into a fine adult, so the color was probably the darkening of a fully mature specimen rather than the color change of a parasitized individual.
Most of the eggs on caterpillars that we have seen look about the same, so while the parasitoid might actually be host specific, it is not likely that the reason is because the eggs are a match for the color pattern. We have seen similar small white eggs on bright green caterpillars. Don't know that there is a creature that flies around eating eggs from caterpillars (but there could be!!) but we don't think the parasitoid cares about camouflaging her eggs.
It would be interesting to know whether your caterpillar pupated and shed its skin - and the eggs - before the eggs hatched and the larva burrowed into the caterpillar. Laying eggs on a fully mature caterpillar might not be a success for the parasitoid. Fascinating!

 
If I come onto the same situa
If I come onto the same situation next summer, maybe I'll corral it and watch to see!

 
Bug study opportunities- almost unlimited(except $)
It appears to this beginner that there is a big gap in the data between larvae and adults!
I didn't have a terrerium(sp) set up but maybe next summer I will. That pretty larvae I submitted that is thought to be of the Ground beetle group would have been my first customer. I looked into the Rove beetle images & their larvae are defiinitely too small. BobP

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