Habrosyne scripta

In the current climate of lumping families and splitting species, the former family Thyatiridae is currently included in the Drepanidae. The two groups appear to a non-taxonomist to be very dissimilar and it seems unfamiliar in the least to be listing Habrosyne as a drepanid. The brown caterpillar is found in August and September feeding on the leaves of Salmonberry Rubus spectabilis or Thimbleberry R. parviflora. Often it pulls one leaf over another, and hides between the two. The caterpillar has the rather attractive habit, shared with many notodontids, of holding the last few segments of its body, including the anal claspers, up in the air. There are one or two pairs of white spots behind the head. Although it is hard to know what goes on inside the head of a tachinid fly, it seems not unreasonable to speculate that these spots, situated just where a tachinid typically lays its eggs, may serve to deceive a fly into believing that the caterpillar has already been the victim of another fly.