Redheaded Pine Sawfly larva (Neodiprion lecontei), at the Thomas Winget Park in Charlotte, North Carolina.
The Redheaded Pine Sawfly is native to North America and occurs throughout the eastern United States west to the Great Plains and in adjacent southeastern Canada. It is an important defoliator of pine throughout this region. Hard pines, including the southern yellow pines, are preferred hosts. However, if these primary hosts are defoliated before larval development is complete, larvae will move to and feed on other species of conifers nearby. The number of generations per year varies within the range; one generation occurs in the North and three or more may occur in the South. The sawfly primarily infests young open-grown pines less than 15 feet in height. The common and widespread practice of reforesting pine by the extensive planting of seedlings creates pure stands of young open-grown trees. These young stands provide favorable habitat for the sawfly.
The larvae have whitish bodies and brown head capsules when first hatched. As larvae feed and grow coloration changes. The fully grown larva is about 25 mm long. The head is reddish orange with a pair of black eyespots. The body is whitish yellow to yellow to greenish yellow marked with four, six or eight longitudinal rows of black spots.
The primary hosts are loblolly (Pinus taeda), Virginia (P. virginiana), slash (P. elliottii), longleaf (P. palustris), and shortleaf (P. echinata) pines.
Great picture! I study these guys as a part of my doctoral research and it's great to see that someone other than myself knows these guys exist...and more importantly sees that they are beautiful!
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Beautiful creature, beautiful shot. What I personally find irritating about this shot is the tilted banding noise in the dark background. It's not very well visible, but once I caught a glimpse of it was very distracting. Strange to see this in an ISO 320 shot.
BTW: I really like how you put all this information about the subjects in your artists comments.
Your awesome photo has been included in our monthly news article located here [link]
Congratulations and please click on the heart icon so that others may see this feature and both the photographers featured and the group receives more recognition.
Thank you for sharing your amazing photo with us.
I like the way we can almost see inside its body.
What I personally find irritating about this shot is the tilted banding noise in the dark background. It's not very well visible, but once I caught a glimpse of it was very distracting. Strange to see this in an ISO 320 shot.
BTW: I really like how you put all this information about the subjects in your artists comments.
The noise comes from the Canon 50D sensor. In that respect, it's a a lot worse than the Canon 40D...