Raising moths

Jellyfire

Last year the kids managed to successfully raise an orange tip https://forum.gardenersworld.com/discussion/1011496/orange-tip-butterfly#latest butterfly from a caterpillar, which was really exciting. Last summer we tried again with an unidentified caterpillar, which we had pinned down to a fairly vague groups of white moths. It has been pupating in the shed since then until they brought it in a couple of weeks ago. Them this morning we got this absolute beauty! Looks like a cinnabar, but most definitely wasn’t a cinnabar caterpillar, so I think it must be one of the burnets?

Dovefromabove

Isn’t it just gorgeous 😃 

Jellyfire

It’s beautiful, the photos don’t really do it justice, the red is really intense. As we were expecting something brown or white was a real surprise 

Dovefromabove

I remember years ago seeing cinnabar caterpillars on the ragwort near the harbour car park at Walberswick ... there’s not so much ragwort there nowadays. Well meaning folk probably remove it ... it’s a shame. 

Jellyfire

Having had a good look now I think it is a Cinnabar, I think I must have got mixed up as to which caterpillar made it (we had some that had parasitic wasp larvae in them, not pleasant!). We get a fair bit of ragwort on the common and Ling here, although there are working parties that try to remove it from the common 

Dovefromabove

If the common is used for grazing or hay I can understand the working party ... it can do such damage to the health of horses and cattle.  

When I kept horses and cattle I was scrupulous about removing ragwort from the grazing and hay meadows, but we left
what grew on the disused railway embankment that ran through our place and topped it before it seeded.