Water Caterpillar?

Question

I bought some kind of fern-like plant for my freshwater aquarium two or three weeks ago. This morning, I noticed the top of the plant had fallen off, and there was a small yellow insect (it looked like a caterpillar, and was the same size) emerging from the bud.

When I moved it away from the plant it was crawling towards, it ducked back into it's bud.

It's a light, almost transparent yellow colour, with small hairs/spikes covering it's body.

I have an African Dwarf Frog in the tank as well as some fry, and am worried on whether the bug will harm the ADF if she eats it, and if it would be better to remove the pest.

I tried Google-ing it, but came up with nothing. Thanks for you help!

Answer 1

A photo or size with your description might help narrow this down, but I'll give you some suggestions and links to photos.

fly larvae:
http://www.waterbugkey.vcsu.edu/image_uploads/dolichopodidae-body_order_7.jpg, http://www.waterbugkey.vcsu.edu/image_uploads/chironomidae-body_order_7.jpg These come in a wide variety, and lack 6 obvious legs (some might have two leg-like projections near the head). A head may or may not be present, but the body is usually worm-like.

caddisfly: http://www.environment.gov.au/water/rivers/nrhp/health/images/caddisfly-ki.jpg This is an aquatic larvae of an insect related to moths. They have an obvious head, 6 legs and two "hooks" on their rear. Many are casebuilders (what you see at the top of the photo), and cases may be built from plants, small rocks, or both.

caterpiller (some moths have aquatic larvae): http://www.dec.state.ny.us/website/dow/stream/lpda.jpg much like a caddisfly, but these have paired circles of hooks on the underside of the body from the legs to the false legs at the rear.

These won't hurt your fish or frog if they are eaten.

Hope this helps. If you'd like more photos, you can do an Yahoo image search using the above names.