Monday, 28 September 2015
Caterpillar id help required
Whilst carrying out surveys for Marsh fritillary larval webs, Em Foot and her Wildlife Trust volunteers have seen a number of these caterpillars. Their identity has stumped us and someone has suggested that they could be Sawfly larvae. They are 35 to 40 mm long and have been observed feeding on Scabious.
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Based on a search of the internet, I think it looks like larva of the Sawfly, abia sericea.
ReplyDeleteThanks Sarah, that's great. Em will be very pleased she has an id.
ReplyDeleteIna
PS. I need to come to you for some internet search tips I think!
When I saw your query I just happened to be checking out some caterpillar queries of my own (see next post). One search tip, which may be useful, is to individually search other moth-ing blogs (such as Glamorgan Moths and Carmarthenshire Moths). There's a search box in the top left corner (at the top of the screen), when you're in the blog itself, which will just search that blog.
ReplyDeleteAlso look out for Abia candens, which lacks the dark spots along the midline (between the pairs of orange spots). Both are Devil's-bit Scabious specialists like the Marsh Fritillary, so worth submitting records to Guy Knight who runs the Sawfly Recording Scheme. I saw both species (plus Marsh Frit webs) at Nant Cledlyn Pingos SSSI last week.
ReplyDeleteThanks Sarah, I had got as far as it being a sawfly, I even looked for Scabious and sawfly but only found images of adults...Note to self... next time add larva!
ReplyDeleteThank you for the heads up about the other one George. More work needed on insects in general I think, but don't seem to have enough hours in the day. ;-)
Ina