Thank You both for your caterpillar ID.Agree with Knotgrass for the caterpillar.
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Thank You both for your caterpillar ID.Agree with Knotgrass for the caterpillar.
There's still hope then, Dave!
I checked again today, David, on a warmish sunny morning, and no butterflies were present on that bit of ground. I'll keep looking as long as the weather is reasonable, but I don't expect anything now. (Incidentally, the Copper concerned has now made what I believe to be his debut in my PD, so hopefully the forthcoming bulletins will confirm that it was the same one throughout.)
Sad indeed, David.
It does sometimes seem like that, David. Today was another example - the persistent cloud of yesterday broke up at around half one, leaving a few hours of warm sunshine on my local patch. I know from the Met Office bulletins that further west and north things were rather different, especially in Cumbria where around ten inches of rain was expected to fall in only a couple of days.
Wow - that's amazing. In the unlikely event that it survives to adulthood, could this produce what will probably be the first ever December sighting of a White Admiral adult? Or will it lack any chance of feeding until fresh growth appears on the honeysuckle, and perish.
Hi Pete, I actually moved it to some fresh growth since it was sitting on the last leaf with any sign of life in it on that particular patch of honeysuckle. There's actually a surprising amount of fresh growth to be found. I checked again yesterday afternoon after the monsoon morning and it is still alive and has nibbled the new leaf. Whether it makes it to adulthood or not we'll just have to wait and see. In this weather though its growth rate has slowed down considerably. I feel a bit sorry for it though since there's no chance of it doing anything useful for it's species now, you could argue it's better off being predated since at least that way its contributing to the local ecosystempetesmith wrote: ↑Sun Oct 31, 2021 9:39 amWow - that's amazing. In the unlikely event that it survives to adulthood, could this produce what will probably be the first ever December sighting of a White Admiral adult? Or will it lack any chance of feeding until fresh growth appears on the honeysuckle, and perish.
It would be interesting to follow it as far as you can bugboy, and I am sure that you will! As you say, it seems a foolish decision for the larva to continue beyond the hibernating 3rd instar - I have found similar larvae on two occasions over the years in central Lincolnshire doing the same thing, moving into the 4th instar in late summer. At least one produced an adult butterfly on 26th September one year after feeding up rapidly. An apparent waste, again, of an individual, but perhaps worth the occasional evolutionary gamble - after all, I guess this is how univoltine species evolve to become bi- or-multivoltine at some point of their evolution, due to climatic changes or range movement?bugboy wrote: ↑Sun Oct 31, 2021 10:35 amHi Pete, I actually moved it to some fresh growth since it was sitting on the last leaf with any sign of life in it on that particular patch of honeysuckle. There's actually a surprising amount of fresh growth to be found. I checked again yesterday afternoon after the monsoon morning and it is still alive and has nibbled the new leaf. Whether it makes it to adulthood or not we'll just have to wait and see. In this weather though its growth rate has slowed down considerably. I feel a bit sorry for it though since there's no chance of it doing anything useful for it's species now, you could argue it's better off being predated since at least that way its contributing to the local ecosystempetesmith wrote: ↑Sun Oct 31, 2021 9:39 amWow - that's amazing. In the unlikely event that it survives to adulthood, could this produce what will probably be the first ever December sighting of a White Admiral adult? Or will it lack any chance of feeding until fresh growth appears on the honeysuckle, and perish.![]()