Found these caterpillars eating my lime tree leaves! What are they? Are they bad? They attached themselves to the tree with some web if that helps. As you can see in the second photo I moved them off. Only saw two. Didn’t want to kill them.
Those are in their 1st or 2nd instar, so very young caterpillars. They can be a bit hard to ID so early, but given the host plant, they're likely papilio demoleus, aka the lime butterfly, lemon butterfly, or checkered swallowtail. They're a very showy butterfly, so I'd keep them. You might want to look up if they're invasive in your area. If they become a problem for your lime tree but you don't want to kill them, they can also eat any plants in the citrus/rue family and any legume
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