About a dozen Scarce Footman (Eilema complana) caterpillars were observed feeding on vegetation at Whiteshell Point between Caswell and Langland in the early hours of Saturday morning. Footman caterpillars are supposed to feed on lichens and algae but these were on Gorse, Kidney Vetch and an unidentified grass. It's long been known that they'll accept dead leaves in captivity, but these had all selected dead parts of living plants including the dead Gorse spine above, a dead grass blade and dead Gorse and Kidney Vetch flowers (below).
2 comments:
Interesting observations Hugh - I can't see any feeding damage on the Gorse leaf and I wonder if the larvae may be grazing something smaller growing on the dead parts of the plants, such as young lichens or algae? Did you see any physical plant damage?
There's certainly damage on some of the plants though I suppose it might already have been there.
I took quite a few other shots and at least one of them seems to show the caterpillar actually eating a dead Kidney Vetch flower. I'll e-mail it to you...
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