4Real Forums: Collecting Caterpillars from the wild?

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Exploring God's Creation in Nature and Science ( Forum Locked)
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Topic: Collecting Caterpillars from the wild?

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dakotamidnight
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Joined: Aug 19 2009
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Posted: July 05 2010 at 12:42am \| IP Logged

I know I saw mention on one of the butterfly threads that someone had collected their caterpillars live from the wild - how did you do it?

There is a field about a mile away that I pass daily on my way to the grocery that is covered in sunflowers covered in what I'm fairly sure are Bordered Patch butterfly caterpillars. I'd like to collect a few along with sunflower leaves for them to eat in our aquarium for DD to see grow. When they get a little larger we'll move them into our butterfly house {right now they are small enough to go through the holes in the netting on the house}.

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Angel
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Joined: April 22 2006
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Posted: July 05 2010 at 8:38am \| IP Logged

Well, that's all we do... just make sure to moisten a cotton ball or a paper towel to put in the container (whatever container you're using). Our caterpillars tend to die for two reasons: not enough water or they're in a container that heats up too much and is set in a too sunny place.

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MaryM
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Posted: July 05 2010 at 10:07am \| IP Logged

We've had good luck with wild Painted Lady caterpillars. Like Angela said, you do need a water source to keep it moist. The most important thing is keep their food source fresh. The sunflowers are the host plant and you will need to make sure you have some of those leaves for food so it's good you mentioned taking those as well. That is what they need to eat and you'll need to replace the leaves regularly to keep them fresh. The caterpillars won''t eat dried out leaves. So I would pick a sun flower with several leaves and put it in a vase in the aquarium. That way it will last several days without drying out. As they get a little wilted replace with more of the same fresh plant/leaves. Another option if you can find a small sunflower plant in the field, is to actually dig it up and transplant it in a small pot to place in the aquarium. That way the plant will stay fresh for a much longer time and not need to be replaced as frequently. Caterpillars eat a large proportion of food to their size. When they are small they don't go through much in a day, but as they get bigger and closer to pupating, they will eat a lot in a day and you' may have to replace more frequently.

Good luck - it's tons of fun!

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