When my son's were very young their favourite book at bedtime was the excellent 'The Very Hungry Caterpillar' by Eric Carle. It was also fun for me reading them the story. Since then when I am seeing caterpillars I remember those happy times.
Recently in the garden I have been checking the Ivy buds hoping to see some Holly Blue caterpillars. The Ivy in my garden doesn't often have flowers, so with a good number this year I decided to have a quick look and was amazed to find a near fully grown caterpillar eating a bud with a Black Garden Ant in attendance. It was fascinating watching the larva as it fed on the buds, occasionally moving to a fresh bud, all the time carrying the ant that was feeding from the caterpillar's honey gland. Most of the larva from the lycaenidae family have a honey gland to attract ants. Several butterflies in this family use ants for various reasons including pupating in ant nests and in the case of the Large Blue, where the butterfly larva actually eats the ant larvae. As far as the Holly Blue goes I don't think amyone really knows how the larva uses the ants, but it must be beneficial in some way.
Over just a few days a much smaller larva also found increased in size very quickly and we followed this one as the original one had after a few days vanished, hopefully to pupate.
Holly Blue larva on new bud with attendant ant still holding on.
The smaller Holly Blue larva.
For many years I have wanted to see a Hummingbird Hawk-moth larva and have searched unsuccessfully for them. This year at last that changed, as when I was on a long walk I spotted large clumps of Lady's Bedstraw in the longer grasses just off the path. I started looking, as usual not expecting to see anything, but glancing just in case. Suddenly I spotted one, and it was so obvious as it fed on the bedstraw. I couldn't believe that after all this time of looking over the years I had at last found one.
Lisa was a little disappointed as she would have loved to have seen one too, so a few days later we went for a walk in the same area to see if we could find one for her. Amazingly, after just a few minutes she spotted one very near to where mine was. It wasn't such a striking one with less defined markings, but she was really pleased to have found her own. Whilst she was photographing her larva I continued searching and found another one. This one was actually better marked than either of the first two. All three were probably near to fully grown as they were larger than expected.
This year has seen so many Hummingbird Hawk-moths migrating over I guess this was the best year to hopefully find the larva.
Lisa'a Hummingbird Hawk-moth larva.
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