Stinging Rose Caterpillar: Appearance, Territory, Damage and Life Cycle

Latin Name: Parasa Indetermina

Appearance: Stinging rose caterpillars, also known as rose slug caterpillars, are the peculiar larvae of green and pale brown moths. Caterpillars are less than an inch long when mature and feed on the leaves of rose, dogwood, apple, cherry, bayberry, hickory, maple, poplar, and oak trees. They are described as aposematically colored. The specimen depicted above was obtained in Washington County, Arkansas, and features a blazing red ground color with vivid yellow spined tubercles emerging from the body wall to alert prospective predators of deadly properties. Many caterpillars are yellow all over and lack the red ground color.

Hosts Plants: Apple, bayberry, cherry, chestnut, dogwood, hickory, maple, oak, paw, pear, plum, poplar, and rose caterpillars eat apple, bayberry, cherry, chestnut, dogwood, hickory, maple, oak, pear, plum, poplar, and rose. Despite having a wide host range, this is a very uncommon species.

Territory: East America

Damage Insect Cause: Poison glands are located at the bases of the black-tipped spines on the elongate body wall projections. When the caterpillars are handled and the ends of the spines break off, venom penetrates the skin of people or animals. The caterpillars are claimed to be capable of causing skin irritation similar to that caused by the saddleback caterpillar, which is one of North America’s most severe urticating’s caterpillars. Caltrop spines are specialized irritating spines found on the lateral horns of many segments.

Life History and Habits: This species is frequent in the woodlands of the eastern United States, but it is not widely distributed. In fact, it is deemed a species of conservation concern in several locations, such as New York State. Adult moths with wingspans of about one inch fly in early June. In July, females deposit eggs, which hatch in around nine days. Larvae prefer to stay hidden on the undersides of leaves. They reach maturity around the middle of September. The species spends the winter as a pupa within a cocoon.