Life Cycles of British and Irish Butterflies

[Padfield]

One of my newly moulted 4th instar orange tip cats moved down from his seed pods to nibble a little leaf today:



Guy

[KeithS]

Just a note - Re: Orange-tip
I have noticed the 5th instar, prior to crawling-off to pupate, goes down and feeds on the leaves of the Garlic-mustard, rather than the seed-pods. I wondered if anyone else has noticed this behaviour?

I usually raise a few every year, but have always kept them on stems of seed pods stood in water, without leaves. The 5th instar larvae seem quite happy to munch on the pods until they crawl off to pupate on the roof of the cage. If I raise any this year, I’ll stick a few leaves in to see what happens!

As an experiment I put a few leaves in with the seed pod stems this year. All the cats had a nibble, especially at the last instar, suggesting that they get something out of the leaves that they don’t get from the pods, although they are in an indoor captive environment of course. I do think the pupae whose cats were given leaves as well as pods look a bit bigger than those without, however. I’ll be including leaves in their diet in future, I think.

[bugboy]

Been rearing some Peacock caterpillars this year (rescued as eggs from a rampaging snail!) and I have to say the growth rate when compared to the book is spot on . They've just gone to 4th instar and most have now been put back from whence they came (it's got to the point where I can't keep up with the fresh Nettle supply) but it's been interesting to read that they should moult the next day and hey presto, come home to lots of old skins and masses of bigger, fatter and even hungrier caterpillars