Ceratomia catalpae

Ceratomia catalpae, the catalpa sphinx, is a hawk moth of the family Sphingidae. Jean Baptiste Boisduval first described it in 1875, and it is also called the Catawba worm. It is native to southeastern North America, where it lives wherever catalpa trees grow, from Maine west to Iowa and south to the Gulf States. The female lays masses of 100 to 1000 translucent, milky-white to yellowish eggs, about half a millimetre across, on the underside of catalpa leaves and on branches, and they hatch five to seven days later. The larvae, known as catalpa worms, catawba worms or toppy worms, are yellow with a black stripe down the back and black dots along the sides, though a pale phase has little or no striping; they reach about 5 centimetres and feed on the leaves of the northern and southern catalpa. The fifth-instar larva leaves the tree, burrows into the ground and pupates. The adult is a dull brown moth with a dark band around the thorax, a body about 30 millimetres long and a wingspan of 65 to 95 millimetres. Fishermen prize the caterpillars as bait for bass, bream and catfish.