What kind of insect is this?
Found in Early September at Jubilee Park, Dunedin, New Zealand. It was suspended from a silk thread (quite long, a few meters) to a tree above. It was climbing the thread, balling the thread as it went up. It looks like a caterpillar. What species is this and what is it inside of?
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1 Answer
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The quality of the pictures is not the best one, but due to the fact that this is NZ, it's probably a moth from the species Liothula omnivora.
It's a kiwi insect (that is, endemic to New Zealand). Its English common name is bagworm, and its Maori common name is pū a Raukatauri. The English name explains your question ("what is it in?"). According to Farm Forestry New Zealand:
The common name of this insect refers to the strong silk bag made as a refuge by the caterpillar. The bag is brown to greyish, often covered with fragments of vegetation, and so tough it cannot be torn open.
Here is a picture of it:
And here is the adult, for comparison:
