This insect created a bit of a flutter when she was found in the seed-raising igloo at the Crows Nest Community Nursery last Thursday.
“Oh no!” we thought. "Not a butterfly laying eggs on our precious seedlings!"
On examination she proved to be not a butterfly, but our largest and most glamorous local day-flying moth. With a wingspan of 7cms, she is as large as the more familiar blue triangle butterfly, so it is not surprising that Joseph’s coat moths are often mistaken for butterflies.
This is a female. You can tell by the large white patches on her shoulders. Her brilliantly striped caterpillars - black, white, and orange - grow to 7cms, so could have done a lot of damage to the right kind of seedlings.
However, the Joseph’s coat moth is only known to breed on plants in the grape family, and there are none of those in the igloo. The poor girl had blundered in there and was only trying to escape.
She was carefully captured, taken home and photographed. (This picture of her showy knickers was taken through a sheet of glass.)
Then she was released in my garden, where her most common local host plant, the slender water vine Cayratia clematidea, grows. Hopefully she has found a boyfriend by now, and may be out there laying eggs as I type.
See March 2011 for more on the slender water vine.
3 comments:
It is absolutely beautiful! What a great find and a great "relocation" story".
I have been gardening today and found three beautiful caterpillars
Upon some detective work found they are the caterpillars of the Joseph coat moth
I have a vine that grows across the top of all the plants and it had gotten out of hand
Because the first caterpillar was on some of this vine (even though it was just a piece) I hoped that it was its food Going to tip the weed bag in the waste bin I found another two caterpillars so put them on the grape vine weed too
Now I have found out that I have put them on the right food source I feel relieved that they will survive
Needless to say I won’t be finishing weeding that garden for a while
Nice to hear that you're enjoying your lovely moths. This is the kind of heart-warming thing that can happen when gardeners are prepared to let nature raise its head in their gardens.
The Slender Water Vines (Cayratia clematidea) have been booming this year after the February rain, which will be why we are having such a good year for the Joseph's Coat moths.
A lot of people weed the vines out, because they grow so fast at first that they look as if they are going to take over the garden. They are pretty, though, with their delicate-looking leaves. If they annoy me, I pull them off the plants, but don't bother to dig up the roots as I know they never really do get out of hand. That fast gowth seems to come to a screaming halt once they reach the flowering and fruiting stage. The birds love the fruits, of course.
The vines get rather tatty in a good moth season, but I still prefer to leave them until the moths have finished breeding (which is about now, when the days are shortening so fast).
My view is that a garden with a soul is full of life of all kinds, not just plants.
Cheers,
Trish
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