"The green belt surprises 'Iron Man'!" Such news appears on the Internet every once in a while, and each time it triggers a wave of amazement. The protagonist of the news is a larvae of a moth, which, unlike ordinary caterpillars, has a very avant-garde appearance: it is smooth and hairless, light green or yellowish brown, and there is a silver-white bright band on the side of the body. There are two blue "eyes" on the "head", as if emitting fluorescent light, like an alien. It is the larvae of the oleander moth.
Oleander moth Daphnis nerii (Linnaeus, 1758) is a moth widely distributed in the southeast coast, southwest and south China of China, belonging to the family Moth. Since it is named "oleander", it naturally means that its larvae feed on oleanders. The oleander family is generally poisonous, so its larvae are also a heavy taste. Eating poisonous weeds, the bug itself is also poisonous, so many predators will not touch it, which is one of the reasons for its large number. Another big reason is that oleander plants are common ornamental flowers around us, and the food source is abundant, and the oleander moth is naturally more.
Among the many oleander family plants, the oleander moth larvae are most loved by the periwinkle (daily spring). It is more tender than the large shrub-style oleander in the green belt, more watery, presumably the taste is better, periwinkle has become the "standard" of many families due to its good maintenance, so our first encounter with "Iron Man" may be on the periwinkle at home.
At first, you will find a few green eggs on the back of the periwinkle leaves, and if you like the pot of periwinkles, you must remove the eggs in time, otherwise it will be gnawed into Geyou sooner or later.
If you're more interested in a bug, you might want to wait for it to hatch. After hatching, the young larvae are turquoise all over the body, the pattern is not obvious, the hip spines are particularly developed, and they are long and black.
As it molts again and again, its hip spines slowly become smaller, and its blue "prosthetic eyes" become clearer and clearer — yes, the "Iron Man"'s eyes are not really eyes, but just two spots on the chest, and when frightened, it will bulge its chest and reveal its prosthetic eyes, making the part of the original chest look like a big head, while the real small head has shrunk under the chest. As for its real eyes, they are just a few dots on the skull that are smaller than sesame seeds, which are basically ornaments.
[As we age, prosthetic eye spots become more pronounced.] Source: Baidu Encyclopedia】
[The false eye spots are actually located on the chest, and the real eyes are a few small dots on the sides of the skull.] source:
Before pupating, the larvae turn yellow-brown, turn black on their backs, and crawl to the ground to prepare to burrow into the soil to pupate, and without the cover of plants, it is also the easiest to be found. When it is buried, it transforms into a yellow pupa with a black longitudinal line in the center of the cephalothorax.
[Larvae before pupaling.] source:
After more than a month, the adults broke ground. The adults of the oleander moth can also be regarded as the more beautiful in the family of oleanders, with intricate patterns. How do you identify it at a glance? There are two features: 1. There are two false eye spots at the base of the forewing, which somewhat echo the eye spots of the larvae. 2. There is a pink horizontal band in the center of the forewing, which is connected to the yellow-white horizontal spot on the ventral back when it is stopped, which looks like a white belt drawn on the waist, so it is also known as the "pink-green white-waisted moth".
However, it also has a relative, daphnis hypothous (Cramer, 1780), which is very similar to it. The difference between the two is that the forewing band of the madder white-waisted moth does not have a pinkish transverse band, and it is very narrow and has a clear edge. The madder white-waisted moth eats plants of the madder family, and you can go to plants such as dragon boat flowers to find it.
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