Subject: Green Worm?
Geographic location of the bug: Spokane, WA
Date: 08/14/2021
Time: 02:11 PM EDT
Your letter to the bugman: found this little guy hiding in the lower crevice underneath my sliding door to the backyard. small enough to fit under the door entirely. i couldn’t see any legs and it seems to only move by flexing its body like a worm. thicker (and greener) than a worm, however. reacted a little to simply blowing in it but it didn’t react when i tapped it with a toothpick (not the sharp sides, i don’t wanna hurt it). no bigger than my index finger in length
How you want your letter signed: Connor S.
One Eyed Sphinx Caterpillar
Dear Connor,
This is not a Worm. It is a Caterpillar, more specifically a Hornworm, a caterpillar of a Sphinx Moth or Hawkmoth in the family Sphingidae. Now comes the interesting part. It sure looks like the caterpillar of a Lime Hawkmoth, Mimas tiliae, but that is a European species that is pictured on Wildlife Insight. 12 years ago we posted a sighting of a Lime Hawkmoth in Pennsylvania and through that posting we learned that Lime Hawkmoths have already been reported in eastern Canada. Doug Yanega, an entomologist at UC Riverside informed us: “The Lime Hawkmoth is already known from eastern canada so Pennsylvania is just the first time it has been sighted across the US border. Probably introduced carelessly or intentionally from someone who has imported and was rearing Sphinx Moths from overseas.” According to iNaturalist: ” the lime hawk-moth, is a moth of the family Sphingidae. It is found throughout the Palearctic region and the Near East, and has also been identified in eastern Canada and in northern Spain (Europe).” Twelve years have passed since that posting and it is entirely possible that the Lime Hawkmoth has either expanded its North American range across the continent or that it hitched across the country with tourists. We might be wrong in our identification. Perhaps Dr. Bostjan Dvorak or another specialist in the family Sphingidae will either confirm or correct our tentative identification. If we are correct, this might be a first sighting in Washington as we are unable to locate any information on its presence there.
Update: August 22, 2021
Thanks to a comment from Bostjan Dvorak, we have been informed that this is a One Eyed Sphinx Caterpillar, not a Lime Hawkmoth Caterpillar.
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