Monarch Trust NZ Forum » Butterflies

Caterpillars and wind NOW

(5 posts)

  1. Amy
    Member

    Hi, I am in Wellington and have got three large healthy Swan plants and finally got lots of tiny caterpillars and can see more eggs. I am really worried though that the wind which is strong will blow the eggs and caterpillars off and anything I plant to screen now will not be big enough, soon enough, any ideas or should I just trust to their tenacity?

    Posted 3 months ago #

  2. Pepetuna
    Key Master

    I'd trust to their tenacity. Maybe the wind will keep the wasps and aphids away too ;-)

    Posted 3 months ago #

  3. NormTwigge
    Key Master

    The eggs are glued to the leaf by an adhesive the female produces so they will not blow off the leaf. Any caterpillar that gets dislodged will simply climb back up again.

    Posted 3 months ago #

  4. Jennifer
    Member

    The time to worry about wind is when they have pupated. The pupa can be blown off as I can attest.

    Posted 3 months ago #

  5. moliver
    Member

    Sometime before, It really appeared as if caterpillars started learning how to fly as there were a few ones that would surprise me and land just a few steps away from me from the sky up and I figured that they are probably swept away by the very strong wind they go up against. It is quite hard to go away from them on those types of weather, quite frankly.

    Posted 3 months ago #

RSS feed for this topic

Reply

You must log in to post.