Caterpillars eating my houseplants!!

Caterpillars are eating my houseplants!

I haven't had time to pay attention to the plants, and they have had a field day. Eating amaryllis leaves, and nibbling all over the jade plant, killed a baby jade plant by eating it to the ground. One leaf damaged on the turmeric, but ginger, galangal, jasmine, spider plants, etc are all ok. So they have definite preferences.


These are on a paper towel, about 1 - 1.5 inches long. They do not fluoresce under ultraviolet light.  
They are an odd gray green, and are eating the leaf edges. The poop bright green when startled.

They are currently still alive, I'm hoping for an ID before I decide what to do with them. There is a pasture I can take them to if they are something neat.

What are they?

looks a bit like an armyworm or a cutworm.
i like this site for stuff in the US, it's good when you know a region and you can whittle it down by color, presence of antennae/spikes, etc (on the results page it says "refine by color or physical features")
https://www.caterpillaridentification.org/identifier.php

they do look like cutworms, but i’ve never heard of this kind of behavior from them. these plants are still inside?

greg mosser wrote:they do look like cutworms, but i’ve never heard of this kind of behavior from them. these plants are still inside?

Neither had I, but Pearl has had huge amounts of rainfall for some time that may have disrupted typical patterns, and when I had a chat with Mr. G----e, he spat out this interesting article which discusses "Climbing Cutworms."

https://treefruit.wsu.edu/crop-protection/opm/fruitworms/

One way to find out is to contain them somewhere, feed them, and see what comes out after they pupate. Do you have time for some short-term house-guests?

The plants are indoors, but like Jay said, I have had high rainfall and flooding inside and out for two months or so. No telling what has come in. Lots of water has come in....

And no, no wiggly house guests welcome :D  I'm going to be checking the plants more to see if I missed any.
They are eating along the edges of the amaryllis plants, killing the leaves by munching.

Do you get those bugs that look like 3 inch mosquitoes? Can't remember what they are called.  Cray fly maybe?

This looks a lot like them.  If it is,

They can desolate a plant in a couple of nights.  Day time finds them about 2 inches below the surface and they come out at night to feed.

If it's one or two, a few nighttime hunts usually does the trick.  But I've had times when I need to replace the entire soil to get them gone.  They especially enjoy ginger and I've wondered if they came in on that as the soil was supposed to be sterilised.

It's looking like whatever they are, they have no reason I'd be nice to them. They will be executed in a few minutes, And I'll be killing any more I find.

Thank you all!!
:D

No worries, Pearl...I poop green when startled too;  I would collect all those little buggers and go fishin. I'm sure some local fish would be delighted to dine on them! Then, you can have fresh fish for dinner.