Page 281 - The Book of Caterpillars: A Life-Size Guide to Six Hundred Species From Around the World

BUTTERFLY CATERPILLARS

FAMILY Nymphalidae
DISTRIBUTION Indonesia, the Philippines, New Guinea, and northern and
eastern Australia
HABITAT Monsoon vine thickets and littoral rain forests
HOST PLANTS Usually Corky Milk Vine (Secamone elliptica); also other
Apocynaceae spp.
NOTE Colorful caterpillar that can defoliate its host plant vine
CONSERVATION STATUS Not evaluated, but common near breeding areas

ADULT WINGSPAN
2 ⁄ in (72 mm)
CATERPILLAR LENGTH
2 in (50 mm)
TIRUMALA HAMATA
BLUE TIGER 279

(W. S. MACLEAY, 1826)

The Blue Tiger caterpillar is generally solitary on the food plant,
but it is a voracious feeder, and when populations are high, large
numbers of larvae can strip milk vines of all foliage. Caterpillars
feed exposed on the plants, developing rapidly to complete their
growth in two weeks or less. The larvae accumulate chemicals
that provide protection from bird predation and also enable them
to produce pheromones, which are released from the hair pencil
tufted pheromone signaling organs of the male butter ies.

Caterpillars will often leave the food plant and pupate on nearby
foliage, suspended head down by the cremaster. During the
dry season of winter, the milk vines have no fresh foliage and
are unsuitable for caterpillar development. Adult butter ies
congregate in shady creek banks to overwinter, often with other
species of milkweed butter ies, and then disperse in the spring

to commence reproduction. Large migration ights often occur

during the breeding season.

The Blue Tiger caterpillar is greenish gray
with an orange-brown lateral line and a white
ventrolateral line; each segment has transverse
black bands enclosing white and narrow gray
bands. There is a dorsolateral pair of black,
eshy laments on the mesothorax and eighth
abdominal segment. The head is black with
two white, transverse bands.
Actual size