![]() Often the new skin differs slightly in pattern or colour to the previous one.Įach stage is called an “instar”. The new skin has enough stretch in it to allow further growth and during its time as a caterpillar, it will repeat this process another three times. Being very small when it first emerges, the caterpillar soon becomes too big for its skin, and within a week, it will attach its hind parts onto a leaf by way of silk, it will rest for a while, and then literally walk out of its skin. If the female laid on the correct plant, the caterpillar then goes on to eat its first meal, and with a few exceptions, this meal is basically uninterrupted – these caterpillars are the original eating machine. If you were wondering why we don’t see as many butterflies around as we used to, it’s because the use of herbicides has reduced the supply of plants that caterpillars can eat.Īpproximately four to five days after the fertilised egg has been laid, the caterpillar eats its way out of the shell, often turning around and ingesting it. You can easily find out which are tasty for the caterpillars in your area by ringing a reputable plant nursery.Ĭaterpillars are fussy eaters, and usually a species will only eat one or two types of plants. The trick to encouraging butterflies into your garden is to cultivate these plants. The female has odour detectors which allow her to locate the plant, sometimes from as far away as two or three kilometres. The lifecycle of a butterfly starts with the female butterfly who deposits her eggs onto a specific plant. – Hercules moths are seasonal, however our breeding program is so successful that we always have Hercules cocoons, caterpillars or moths on display and sometimes all three at the same time, usually from September to June. – The Hercules moths do not have a usable proboscis and cannot feed, so they only live long enough to find a mate and for the female to lay her eggs – which is about 2 to 8 days. – They have been known to stay in their cocoons from two months to two years. – The caterpillars get so large that they end up looking like green pork sausages with legs. – The host food plant for the caterpillars is the Bleeding Heart tree (Omalthamus novoguineenis) and Cheese tree (Glochidion sp). – The female Hercules moth is bigger than the male because it has to carry a belly full of eggs – up to 300 of them. The Guinness Book of Records states it had an incredible wingspan of 36cm (14.17 inches). – The largest Hercules moth ever recorded was a huge female caught in 1948 at Innisfail, just south of Cairns. It is only found in North Queensland and New Guinea. The Hercules Moth is the world’s largest moth. ![]()
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