Suspiciously colorful saturniid larva (plus something else)

[saye]

This photo of a supposed saturniid moth has been around on the web, not only never properly identified, but often paired with Saturnia pavonia as if it was its immature. It was apparently photographed in Sweden by Marco Fisher; a different angle photograph can be found on the photographer's website among regular macros. Still, the colours are suspicious - any id?

[saye]

How about this (sphingid?) larva? Also goes around without id (that I noticed). Any guesses?

[Paul K]

Jan 6, 2019 16:09:54 GMT -8 saye said:

How about this (sphingid?) larva? Also goes around without id (that I noticed). Any guesses?

I don't think it is Sphingidae, I would guess Notodontidae.

[mothman27]

Jan 6, 2019 16:08:25 GMT -8 saye said:

This photo of a supposed saturniid moth has been around on the web, not only never properly identified, but often paired with Saturnia pavonia as if it was its immature. It was apparently photographed in Sweden by Marco Fisher; a different angle photograph can be found on the photographer's website among regular macros. Still, the colours are suspicious - any id?

An Automeris sp.?

[saye]

@paul K
Right, the raised/modified posterior/prolegs is the hint, I presume.

radusho
That seems to be it, thanks. Impressive colours.

[cabintom]

I expect that first photo has been post-processed slightly. It's a common practice to slightly increase saturation and even colour shift to make the image "pop" a bit more. If you look at the stick closely, it seems to me that it too is a bit pinker than it ought to be.

[nomihoudai]

The second one is some species of Eudocima.

[saye]

@ cabintom
Right. No other photo of the larva shows anywhere near the same colouration. I guess that's a combination of freshly moulted plus some tweaking.

@ nomihoudai
That's it. Thanks.

[bartcoppens]

The original photographer has admitted to changing the colours in this image.
It's a photoshopped larva of A. larra