AboutEric R. Eaton Expertise I can answer most questions related to wasps, solitary bees, grasshoppers and katydids, beetles, cicadas, and spiders, especially requests to identify "mystery bugs" in North America!
Experience
Past/Present clients Principal author of the "Kaufman Field Guide to Insects of North America" (in bookstores now!), Smithsonian Institution (contract), Cincinnati Zoo (employer), Portland State University (contract), Chase Studio, Inc (employer), Arkansas Museum of Discovery (guest speaker), Krohn Conservatory, Cincinnati (volunteer trainer, guest speaker).
there was a bug on my door and i it looks like a moth with a scorpion tail. I want to know what it really is.
Answer Chris:
Thank you for attaching the nice image with your question, as it leaves no doubt what you have there....
Depending on where you live, the moth is either the "spotted apatelodes," Apatelodes torrefacta, or the "western apatelodes," Apatelodes pudefacta. Both species used to be classified in their own family, but are now placed in the family Bombycidae, the same family as the commercial silkmoth that is raised in Asia to produce silk for clothing.
You can see more images of the adult moths, and images of the caterpillars, too, I believe, at:
or post your own image there, too. According to "Caterpillars of Eastern North America," by David L. Wagner (Princeton Field Guides, Princeton University Press, 2005), the caterpillars of the spotted apatelodes feed on all manner of woody plants and trees, including American hornbeam, cherry, ash, hickory, oak, walnut, willow, and witch hazel. The mature caterpillars are large and densely hairy, covered in long, white hairs with conspicuous black "pencil" tufts in front and back.
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