Hungry caterpillars

While the milkweed plants have had a reprieve from monarch butterfly caterpillars, plants in other parts of the garden have been home (and food) to the caterpillars of several moth species.  The most noticeable of these caterpillars are the ones covering the oleander tree.

A spotted oleander caterpillar (Empyreuma affinis) eating an oleander (Nerium oleander) leaf.

These caterpillars have a bright orange and white coloration that signals a powerful chemical defense. Oleanders contain toxic cardiac glycosides, but these do not deter the spotted oleander caterpillars.  In fact, these caterpillars are able to sequester the toxins within their bodies, thus becoming distasteful to many of their would-be predators.

The caterpillars consuming the other plants were more difficult to locate.  The sphinx moth caterpillars on the papaya tree matched the papaya stems and leaves well.  However, they did stand out after they had eaten most of the small papaya tree's leaves.

One of the five Alope sphinx (Erinnyis alope) caterpillars that nearly defoliated the young papaya (Carica papaya) tree.

The caterpillars in the herb patch used two very different strategies to avoid detection, although both were ultimately unsuccessful.  The leafroller caterpillars used the parsley leaves themselves as camouflage by weaving the leaves together...

One of the leafrollers that had been eating the parsley (now in a jar).

...and the dirt brown armyworms ate basil at night and dropped to the soil to hide throughout the day.

An armyworm (Spodoptera sp.) that had been eating the basil.