Re: Padfield
Posted: Thu May 10, 2018 9:15 pm
Thank you David, Goldie and Andrew.
I must confess to being a little obsessed with purple emperor caterpillars. I first started hunting for them in late summer 2008. I found my first one - Nero - in the spring of 2010. Nero was in fact a special individual, having hibernated in 2nd instar, and he inspired me to learn more about these amazing creatures. Few people consciously realise that the butterflies they see gracing the forests in July and August have survived a whole year as egg, caterpillar and chrysalis. They have escaped the clutches of birds, spiders and forest bugs, been subjected to bitter temperatures on twigs and stems throughout the winter and shed their larval skins five times. It is a real privilege to share some of this journey with them.
Today it rained persistently from dawn until my late-night dog-walk. Despite that, I was able to find two more caterpillars on my lunchtime walk: Riley and Principal Flutie. The giveaway in both cases was the pattern of feeding damage on nearby leaves, but both were also interesting in that they shared they patches with other herbivores. Normally, I take the presence of non-iris damage to mean it's not worth looking just there for iris. But this leaf spray shows both - iris on the right and something else on the left:
![Image](http://www.guypadfield.com/images2018/iriscatrileyhint10may2018a.jpg)
This led me to Riley, who is laid up for ecdysis - apologies for the awful photo, taken in rubbish light conditions:
![Image](http://www.guypadfield.com/images2018/iriscatriley10may2018a.jpg)
Principal Flutie seems to have recently graduated into 5th instar. It looks as if he is trampling on his old skin here:
![Image](http://www.guypadfield.com/images2018/iriscatflutie10may2018a.jpg)
His tree also showed signs of other insect damage, such as curled or perforated leaves.
That brings my spring 2018 total to 11 cats, of which I am still on top of 10. Just Drusilla has disappeared. It is possible - just possible - that I will be able to locate the chrysalis of at least one of them, as several are on isolated, reasonably substantial saplings. Caterpillars in big trees disappear into the canopy and are impossible to find among the large summer leaves. Caterpillars on tiny saplings usually wander off. But there is a happy medium. Fingers crossed ...
Guy
I must confess to being a little obsessed with purple emperor caterpillars. I first started hunting for them in late summer 2008. I found my first one - Nero - in the spring of 2010. Nero was in fact a special individual, having hibernated in 2nd instar, and he inspired me to learn more about these amazing creatures. Few people consciously realise that the butterflies they see gracing the forests in July and August have survived a whole year as egg, caterpillar and chrysalis. They have escaped the clutches of birds, spiders and forest bugs, been subjected to bitter temperatures on twigs and stems throughout the winter and shed their larval skins five times. It is a real privilege to share some of this journey with them.
Today it rained persistently from dawn until my late-night dog-walk. Despite that, I was able to find two more caterpillars on my lunchtime walk: Riley and Principal Flutie. The giveaway in both cases was the pattern of feeding damage on nearby leaves, but both were also interesting in that they shared they patches with other herbivores. Normally, I take the presence of non-iris damage to mean it's not worth looking just there for iris. But this leaf spray shows both - iris on the right and something else on the left:
![Image](http://www.guypadfield.com/images2018/iriscatrileyhint10may2018a.jpg)
This led me to Riley, who is laid up for ecdysis - apologies for the awful photo, taken in rubbish light conditions:
![Image](http://www.guypadfield.com/images2018/iriscatriley10may2018a.jpg)
Principal Flutie seems to have recently graduated into 5th instar. It looks as if he is trampling on his old skin here:
![Image](http://www.guypadfield.com/images2018/iriscatflutie10may2018a.jpg)
His tree also showed signs of other insect damage, such as curled or perforated leaves.
That brings my spring 2018 total to 11 cats, of which I am still on top of 10. Just Drusilla has disappeared. It is possible - just possible - that I will be able to locate the chrysalis of at least one of them, as several are on isolated, reasonably substantial saplings. Caterpillars in big trees disappear into the canopy and are impossible to find among the large summer leaves. Caterpillars on tiny saplings usually wander off. But there is a happy medium. Fingers crossed ...
Guy