What would a gynandromorph caterpillar look like?

[bugmankeith]

I've seen images of adult moths and butterflies but never the caterpillar. Do they not display the split coloring? Only reason is one year I found and Eastern Tent caterpillar, it had a noticeable broken stripe and yellow V pattern on its face, nothing like any other of the caterpillars. It's pupa was strange it wasn't the normal maroon but dark red. Unfortunetly it never hatched but the pupa was hard to sex. I'm thinking it might have been a gynandromorph. I still have old photos of the caterpillar.

 

[Tenodera]

It would only be noticeable if the caterpillar of the species has differentiated sexual characteristics; most of them don't. If you could put up the photos that'd be cool. I suspect that the one you saw had an injury or malformation on the head capsule that altered the pattern. It could also have been an unusual color morph maybe?

 

[bugmankeith]

It would only be noticeable if the caterpillar of the species has differentiated sexual characteristics; most of them don't. If you could put up the photos that'd be cool. I suspect that the one you saw had an injury or malformation on the head capsule that altered the pattern. It could also have been an unusual color morph maybe?

Come to think of it, do caterpillars even have genders or do they get genders during pupation? Ill have to scan the photos.

 

[Tenodera]

They really don't, the sex organs develop internally as the caterpillar grows. For some reason I was thinking that bagworms (Psychidae) showed sexual dimorphism as caterpillars, but after doing some reading I guess i was mistaken.

 

[bugmankeith]

It would only be noticeable if the caterpillar of the species has differentiated sexual characteristics; most of them don't. If you could put up the photos that'd be cool. I suspect that the one you saw had an injury or malformation on the head capsule that altered the pattern. It could also have been an unusual color morph maybe?

Photos are really bad quality from a disposable camera. The odd one is on the right in both photos and compared to a normal caterpillar.