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I
have many fond memories of reading to my children when they were young and The
Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle certainly brings back warm memories ...
The
above image shows a final instar larva of the White Admiral (Limenitis
camilla) feeding on honeysuckle (Lonicera periclymenum). On
emergence from the egg, the light brown larva eats the shell before moving to
the leaf tip to feed. Here it feeds on each side of the midrib on which it
rests, leaving the midrib intact and producing characteristic feeding damage
that is quite easy to spot. The larva initially decorates itself with faeces
which it uses for camouflage, although this is abandoned after a week or so,
after which the larva rests quite openly.
Toward
the end of the summer after the second moult, the larva builds a winter
retreat, known as a hibernaculum. This is constructed by securing a
leaf to the twig with silk (so that the leaf remains attached to the foodplant
even after it has died), removing the edges of the leaf, and then folding what
remains of the leaf edges together and forming a compartment within which the
larva overwinters. The
larva emerges from the hibernaculum in the spring and, at the
final moult, turns green in colour and starts to feed on the leaf edges rather
than from the tip. The full-grown and exotic larva is a spectacular beast which has a curious
habit of resting along the centre of a leaf with both front and back ends
raised. There are 4 moults in total.
