As part of a metagenomic analysis of gut microflora, V3 region of the 16s rRNA gene of the bihar hairy caterpillar, Spilosoma obliqua collected from the sunflower field was sequenced using a MiSeq desktop sequencer (Illumina, San Diego, California). The sequence comprised of 381 074 paired-end reads with 50.76 % GC content and 35.95 average base quality (Phred score), after the reads were passed through a conserved region filter, a spacer sequence filter, a read quality filter, and mismatch filter. Singleton and chimeric sequences were removed as part of pre-processing, and the 255 904 paired-end reads that remained were considered for the analysis. After removing singleton operational taxonomic units (OTUs) and chimeric sequences, 206 OTUs were identified, representing 13 phyla, 22 classes, 32 orders, 48 families, 38 genera, and 16 species. To our knowledge, this is the first successful application of Illumina-based de novo sequencing for the analysing the microbial community of the gut of a bihar hairy caterpillar.