Topic: Chilli caterpillar mystery

[Bluejane]

Hi all

Would be grateful for any insight/theories anyone might have . . .

I've got three chilli plants on my dining room windowsill. Yesterday I noticed some caterpillars eating the leaves of two of them. The caterpillars are green, a slightly darker shade on top and lighter underneath, and range from about a quarter of an inch to 2 inches long. I can't find any reference to anything similar being a pest of chillies in my veg books. I've had a look in my (quite basic) butterfly book and the nearest thing they look like are orange tip or maybe brimstone caterpillars. But if they are either of these, how come they're happily eating chilli leaves, which you wouldn't have thought were a natural local food plant?

The really mysterious thing is that these plants have led a very sheltered life - they were raised from seed on the bedroom windowsill and have never been outside - so where could the eggs have come from? I did wonder if they could have been brought in on the dogs' or cats' fur - or maybe even human clothes - but it seems a bit unlikely that they'd have been able to hop from animal to plant!

Any ideas? I'm bewildered!

[thifasmom]

i found a few caterpillars in my scotch bonnet fruit last year but i didn't research what they looked like or where they may have come from, but i think it might be a moth.

[macmac]

I don't know what the pest is but do you think because the chillis were grown in isolation they were the only food source for this little critter to lay it's eggs on, of cause I don't know how the critter in question got there in the first place ::)
the phrase "back to square one " springs to mind but good morning anyway :)

[tonybloke]

Sounds like a Moth Caterpillar to me! the leaves ain't that unpalatable, I get caterpillar damage on brugmansia, and that's highly poisonous!!

[amphibian]

I've had similar blighters on indoor peppers, they sometimes stick a leaf to another and hide in between them.

As others have said, probably a moth.

[Twoflower]

It sound like the one i had eating my basil. The girls wanted to see what it grow into...........it hatched into a brown moth :'( The caterpiller was such a pretty geen as well!

[saddad]

All over my basil as well  >:(

Is it the tomato moth?  :-\

[Twoflower]

are they little and round ;D