Saturday, June 25, 2011

Cabbage Butterfly (Moth) Update

The cabbage moths are really butterflies, I think. A chrysalis that we took off a collard and interned into Luke's bug barn has produced a little butterfly for us. It was clinging to the roof of the barn this morning. Butterflies have thin antenna, moth antenna are feathery. Butterflies have thin bodies, moth bodies are more plump. Our little miss/mister/whatever clearly has non-feathery antenna and a pretty thin body.

A caterpillar that we plucked off one of those collards has shed its final skin and is now snuggled within a chrysalis. It will be interesting to note how long it takes to emerge, assuming we don't fry it within the bug barn.

As Luke will point out to you -- you can
really see its compound eyes!

Beautiful, really. It is too bad it loves our
collards and kale so much..

2 comments:

  1. Cool close up photos. It is actually pretty darn cute. Terry spotted a yellow jacket eating a cabbage worm on Saturday. Later, we saw another yellow jacket searching deep within another cabbage looking for more worms. Now we're debating whether to put out the yellow jacket traps this year.

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  2. That's pretty cool. I was wondering what ate them. I suspect that mantis would, too, but mantis aren't native (isnt that right?).

    And, I agree, they are pretty cute. I'd gladly plant a plot for them, if they agreed to leave the main crop alone.

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