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Wednesday, June 13, 2018

Bird poop caterpillars that loves to munch till clean the leaves of my lime and lemon plant.

I have found few of bird poop caterpillars infested the leaves of my lime and lemon plant at home. They are always there whenever I have long paused from spraying the leaves with my organic  pesticide concoction.
Close up of the bird poop caterpillar on my lemon leaf [1].
The overview look of the bird poop caterpillar on the leaf of my lemon plant.
Its larval stage can be a serious pest to citrus farms, which has earned its caterpillars the names orange dog or orange puppy. The giant swallowtail caterpillars have developed remarkable camouflage from predators by closely resembling bird droppings. They use this, along with their osmeteria, to defend against predators such as wasps, flies, and vertebrates [1].
The scientific name of butterfly that will emerge from this type of caterpillar is Papilio cresphontes [1].

To be frank, it is not an easy task identifying such insect only based on pictures. It does consume time, energy, dedication, effort and focus. If in Artificial Intelligence (AI) field, such process is called image recognition. Regardless, good clear pictures of them does contribute to better accuracy in identification process.
Since such task definitely falls under the expertise of Entomologist that study Entomology😉. Which sadly, I have none colleagues in such area of expertise. Would be nice to have one😍.
Entomology (from Ancient Greek ἔντομον (entomon), meaning 'insect', and -λογία (-logia), meaning 'study of') is the scientific study of insects, a branch of zoology [2].
However, such task does assist a lot for preventive action to keep control of their population from wiping clean my plants at home.

I have to regularly spray my lime and lemon plant with concoction of organic pesticide to keep my leaves from eaten clean by those bird poop caterpillars.

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