Orange Tip Ova
Posted: Thu May 20, 2010 10:00 pm
While searching for Orange Tip ova on Garlic Mustard (Alliaria petiolata) around my local patch this year, I noticed one or two which had been laid not upon the flowers or developing seed pods, but on the under surface of the leaves of the plant. This prompted me to search the leaves of the Garlic Mustard plants more thoroughly and in doing so I discovered almost twenty ova laid on the under surface of the leaves.
This ties in quite neatly with an experiment I conducted last Spring where I successfully reared Orange Tips from ova, feeding them exclusively on Garlic Mustard leaves and not the seed pods. All of the adults emerged successfully this Spring and were duly released.
This implies that Orange Tips do not lay exclusively upon the developing seed pods as most literature suggests, and will survive quite successfully on the leaves of the food plant alone.
The majority of the plants that I examined already bore Orange Tip ova upon the flowers and/or seed pods. This implies that with larvae feeding upon both the seed pods and the leaves, more Orange Tips are able to develop on limited quantities of food plant than perhaps previously considered.
Has anyone else noticed Orange Tip ova laid upon anything other than the flower heads and developing seed pods?
Felix.
This ties in quite neatly with an experiment I conducted last Spring where I successfully reared Orange Tips from ova, feeding them exclusively on Garlic Mustard leaves and not the seed pods. All of the adults emerged successfully this Spring and were duly released.
This implies that Orange Tips do not lay exclusively upon the developing seed pods as most literature suggests, and will survive quite successfully on the leaves of the food plant alone.
The majority of the plants that I examined already bore Orange Tip ova upon the flowers and/or seed pods. This implies that with larvae feeding upon both the seed pods and the leaves, more Orange Tips are able to develop on limited quantities of food plant than perhaps previously considered.
Has anyone else noticed Orange Tip ova laid upon anything other than the flower heads and developing seed pods?
Felix.