The first is the caterpillar of the Peacock Butterfly. We saw these coming home from school a couple of weeks ago and there were dozens of them. Very bizarrely there were crossing the pavement and determinedly crossing the road. Nothing seemed to stop them - cars, people, grass - nothing. It was a very strange sight. I believe they all leave their 'nest' at once and look for food (which is mainly nettles) but there were nettles on the side of the road where we were so I have no idea what the compulsion to cross it was.
This second caterpillar I found munching away on our raspberry plants. Not something I normally encourage but I left it there in this case! I am not quite sure what this one is but after a bit of research I think it is the caterpillar of the Buff Ermine Moth.
Lastly is this rather striking caterpillar which we found on the Ranges when we went for our picnic recently. It was feeding on Ragwort and it is the caterpillar of the equally striking Cinnabar Moth.
Close up they look ferocious, don't they?
ReplyDeleteMacro Mary/Ruby/Yellow
Wonderful captures. I haven't seen that many caterpillars this year. Such a shame really.
ReplyDeleteI know they are deadly for the plants but I do love watching them.But it is true that there are not a lot of caterpillars around this year...and not a lot of butterflies.
ReplyDeleteCute little critters!
ReplyDeleteFantastic shots! The first one is my favorite!
ReplyDeleteBeautiful caterpillars! I don't know why they suicidally cross roads, either, but they do.
ReplyDeleteNice to see a cinnabar moth caterpillar. We had a lot here once, then some horse people campaigned to have all the ragweed destroyed and I have only seen ONE cinnabar moth since then. So sad.
The Peacock Butterfly cat is really beautiful. I let tansy ragwort grow in my garden every year to host the Cinnabar moth cats. I used to get so many cats they would defoliate all the plants in my yard, and I would move them around to new plants. But the last couple of years since then have had very few cats. I don't know what happened. Thanks for sharing!
ReplyDeleteThat first one looks pretty vicious! lol!
ReplyDelete