www.ukbutterflies.co.uk

Hi, I wonder if anyone can help me.

My daughter found a caterpillar in a sandpit (ie not on or near any plant!) and is keen to try to raise it to a butterfly/moth. I want to encourage her but don't know what to feed it. My daughter picked some leaves from weeds growing in the area eg dandelions, clover and similar but the caterpillar has ignored them. I'm worried we are starving it to death!! I know nothing about caterpillars but looking on the internet the only thing it looked like was a European Corn Borer - It is translucent white with black spots, black head and tail, not hairy. It certainly wasn't near any corn and I don't have access to any... every article I read talks about how to get rid of them from crops not how to feed one!

If you can help, you will make a 4 year old very happy and encourage her passion for butterflies!

Thanks
Vicki

Hi Vicki,

Unless you can identify the caterpillar with certainty, my advice in this instance would be to take the caterpillar back to where you found it as soon as possible, releasing it not actually in the sandpit but in nearby vegetation (shade and cover would be particularly important if you release it during the day). It should be able to find what it needs. It would be a good lesson for your daughter (to leave wild creatures in the wild, not try and possess them) and would avoid the rather terrible lesson of your daughter's first experience of rearing caterpillars being of killing one by starvation.

If you are able to identify it definitively, there are plenty of people on these forums who can give species-specific advice and help you keep it alive. Not all butterflies and moths are equally easy to rear, though, and in most cases I would still think that after getting the right food to your caterpillar and enjoying it for a short time you should teach your daughter by example and return the insect to the wild.

A photo, even a poor one, would help with the identification.

All the best,

Guy

Vicki sent me a photo and I believe it to be a sawfly larva.

Cheers,

- Pete