Today in color challenge, the color is Green.
Image source: http://www.australiangeographic.com.au/blogs/creatura-blog/2014/01/dragonhead-caterpillar
There are 400 famous animals related to the butterfly sub-family called Charaxinae. These are found in many areas of North America, Europe, China and South Australia, their laughed, or caterpillar, forms a beautiful feature head capsule.
image source: http://www.australiangeographic.com.au/blogs/creatura-blog/2014/01/dragonhead-caterpillar
Complete with four horn-like projections of varying lengths, covered in a layer of spines and often a decorative curl at the end, it’s not hard to imagine these little green caterpillars as brutish warmongers.
And just as each leafwing butterfly species has its own wing patterns and colours, so do these caterpillars sport their own take on the dragonhead helmet form. The white-barred Charaxes (Charaxes brutus) caterpillar from Africa, for example, looks every bit the rookie solider, with extremely short, blueish projections.
And the foxy emperor butterfly’s (Charaxes jasius) caterpillar from Africa and the Mediterranean is also stuck with four very short horns, though they do look slightly more fearsome with their blood-red tips.
And the top picture, by Australian photographer John Horstman, depicts an unidentified species found in Pu’er, in China’s Yunnan province, showing off an extra set of small, bright red horns, probably handy for startling predators.
Content Source: http://www.australiangeographic.com.au/blogs/creatura-blog/2014/01/dragonhead-caterpillar
