I received the following email today
Thank you for sending your image through to Discovery Centre
at Melbourne Museum.
I have shown the image to a Lepidoptera expert who visits
the collections each week and he has said the larva is a species of moth and
not butterfly and that there are several different families that it may belong
to. If you are really keen to know and if you can get it to pupate and have the
adult emerge we are more than happy to look at the image of the adult. If you
are willing to continue to sacrifice some silver beet feed it until it pupates,
put the specimen in a jar with air holes and take a photo of the adult when it
emerges. Just be careful in handling any hairy caterpillars or their cocoons as
they can be capable of causing irritation to people.
Even the experts can't tell!
Such a great service the museum provides and I will definitely be trying to get a picture if all goes well. See my earlier posts on our new pet for more on our mystery caterpillar http://landcare.blogspot.com/2011/09/eating-rainbow-and-caterpillar.html
Amazed as this prompt and interesting service. Good things abound if we look for them. keep us posted on the caterpillar/butterfly please.
ReplyDeleteWow, how intriguing! I wonder how you end up becoming a Lepidoptera expert? I love the pictures you find :-)
ReplyDeleteI'm loving this mystery! - funnily enough my mother went to a talk on moths and has generally been getting into a lather about larvae ever since. (Sorry that pun was sooooo awful.....its late I'll go now...)
ReplyDeleteThat's quite awesome!
ReplyDeleteTells you something about the devotion of the ones at the museum. It will be very interesting to follow the development - hope all goes well!
Hmm! It seems you have quite a mystery on your hands..what a fantastic resource, though!
ReplyDelete