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I found this caterpillar on one of my snapdragons this morning, and now he has moved on to another and seems to be eating only the flowers. Please help with an ID please!
Kathy, you stand a better chance of a positive ID if you post your picture in the insect and spider ID forum. There are some very knowledgeable folk there that should be able to help you.
It's the larvae of some kind of moth...don't know which one, but I get those every year on Petunias, snaps, cosmos, etc.
Get some BT Caterpillar Killer and spray the plants with it. It's an organic harmless bacteria that kills them w/o hurting the plants.
Green Loght makes a good one and you can get it just about everywhere.
Thank you, JasperDale, Pirl said you would probably know. I already have the Bt caterpillar killer. Just wasn't sure if it was the same thing that I had on my petunias earlier in the year or a butterfly caterpillar. This one is quite a bit bigger, and a different color. I'll go spray right them now!
Another good thing to do is to use some of that systemic rose food with insecticide in it when you're planting new annuals. It poisons the plant pretty quickly and any caterpillars that eat it die sooner before they devour the plant.
i used some of the rose systemic fertilizer when i planted my boxes last weekend...but i saw the caterpillar this morning, and didn't have time to come back in to find out what it was, and by the time i got home this evening he had already moved to three other plants! talk about voracious appetites!
