What Do Fuzzy Caterpillars Eat?

There are many types of fuzzy caterpillars and all of them eat different types of host plants - the plants that serve these fuzzy caterpillars both as home and food. What fuzzy caterpillars have in common is that they are moth caterpillars, unlike butterfly caterpillars, which are always smooth.

Fuzzy caterpillar identification may be not so easy as with common caterpillars, because the pattern and colors are easier recognized of whose smooth skin. On this page I’m telling about the fuzzy caterpillars I’m most frequently asked to recognize.

Brown fuzzy caterpillar

A brown fuzzy caterpillar is most likely to be a Salt Marsh Moth Caterpillar. There are typically brown, although their spikes’ (scientifically called bristles) color may also be partially black. Salt marsh moth caterpillar food mostly consists of weeds, that’s why this fuzzy brown caterpillar can often be found at weedy waste places, farm fields and, of course, and marshes - including salt marshes (as you can suggest by the name). Salt marsh moth caterpillars eat anglepod (Gonolobus spp.), ground cherry (Physalis spp.), Sicklepod (Cassia tora), pigweed (Amaranthus spp.), clover, Dog Fennel (Eupatorium capillifolium), mallow (Anoda spp.), as well as crops and cultivated plant leaves, such as asparagus, alfalfa, bean, beet and sugarbeet, turnip, carrot, cabbage, soybean, cotton, celery, lettuce, corn, potato, tomato, onion, pea, tobacco. Sometimes you can find then dining with trees and shrubs leaves: cherry, poplar, apple, elderberry, alder, pear,serviceberry.

Black fuzzy caterpillar

Black fuzzy caterpillar: Giant Leopard MothBlack fuzzy caterpillar you found is much likely to be a Giant Leopard Moth caterpillar - a most beautiful flying creature! To make sure it’s a Giant Leopard Moth caterpillar, rubs it slightly on its bristles, and if you see red red intersegmental stripes on its back when it curls - you spotted it right! These black fuzzy caterpillars eat shrubs, low growing plants and forest trees and other broad-leaved plants: cherry, banana, maple,cabbage, orange, dandelion, violet, sunflower, willow.

Black fuzzy caterpillars with red or orange stripe

If you wonder what do fuzzy black and orange caterpillars eat, you have most likely found a wooly bear caterpillar - a beautiful black caterpillar with spikes with the central part of the body of yellow, orange or red color. These are very interesting creatures who are even believed to be weather predictors! You can read in detail about these fuzzy caterpillars in What Do Wooly Bear Caterpillars Eat? section.