Does anyone know what this is? Is it a baby moth or butterfly or none?

[Fangeddeer]

Hi, I found this little guy and thought it’s the cutest bug ever! I rlly wanna hold it, but idk if it’s dangerous. Any help is needed!

 

[azygous]

Identifying bugs is a fun pastime. You would have more luck using search engines such as Google than asking here what it is. But if you want to enlist others here in an exercise of curiosity, which I certainly enjoy, you need to provide a frame of reference. That means taking a very closeup photo of it along with something everyone can recognize so we can know its size. Or measure it accurately and tell us.

Then tell us your location in the world and where you found it. Was it on a tree? Was it buried in the soil? Was it in a sack of grain?

There are literally millions upon millions of moths and butterflies and beetles that this larva could turn into, and there are still millions of these larvae that have not even been identified and named by scientists yet.

So, not knowing your location or its size, we can only take our wildest guesses. Mine is that it could be a moth, but that's about the extent of it. Is that enough?

 

[JacinLarkwell]

Google lens pulled up several types of moth

 

[Fangeddeer]

Identifying bugs is a fun pastime. You would have more luck using search engines such as Google than asking here what it is. But if you want to enlist others here in an exercise of curiosity, which I certainly enjoy, you need to provide a frame of reference. That means taking a very closeup photo of it along with something everyone can recognize so we can know its size. Or measure it accurately and tell us.

Then tell us your location in the world and where you found it. Was it on a tree? Was it buried in the soil? Was it in a sack of grain?

There are literally millions upon millions of moths and butterflies and beetles that this larva could turn into, and there are still millions of these larvae that have not even been identified and named by scientists yet.

So, not knowing your location or its size, we can only take our wildest guesses. Mine is that it could be a moth, but that's about the extent of it. Is that enough?

That’s enough dw! And it’s probably the size of my thumb, located in California Bay Area. I found it on the grass but put it on a plant. It didn’t move much, nor on the ground. It’s furless and thornless, but it has spots all the way down it’s body.

It’s like tanish? Not yellow but not quite white. And a lighter yellowish marking going down the top of its body. Weird little thing

 

[Cebarmlds]

It looks like a grub of some sort.

 

[azygous]

That's pretty good size. That means it will grow into a very large butterfly or one of the moths that are gigantic like hummingbird moths and lunar moths or even large moths like millers. You might start by asking Google to find moths and butterflies in your area that have larvae that are thumb size. And specify you want images. You'll get a lot to look at and maybe something will say BINGO!

 

[aart]

It looks like a grub of some sort.

I agree. Grubs turn in to beetles and live underground, not on tree or plants.

 

[azygous]

Grubs are always curled into a "C" so if it was curled up when you found it, it's a grub. You should look up images of grubs in central California if you wish to find out what sort of beetle it will turn into. Being thumb size, unless you are a small child with a small thumb, this could be an awesome beetle when it pupates.

 

[azygous]

Is this what you have? It's a grub that lives in grassy areas. It turns in a scarab beetle like this one.

This is a scarab beetle.

 

[aart]

Is this what you have?

Heads look different

I follow an insect ID group on FB. Grubs are very hard to ID, think their rear ends can be the defining attribute.