Subject: Disappearing caterpillars

From: [email-masked] ("Colin Cracknell")
Date: Sat, 29 Jun 1996 07:03:19 GMT

Beside my local pub is a patch of wasteland, with stinging nettles. On 
one patch were a large number of small caterpillars. I'm pretty sure they 
were Peacock (Ianachis io) & Small Tortoiseshell (Aglais urticae). I 
"stole" one of each species and put them on a nettle patch in my garden. 
The next day all the Tortoiseshells had disappeared from the pub, but a 
month later the Peacocks are still thriving. I seem to have lost the 
Peacock I took, but the Tortoiseshell is thriving, so I doubt that it was 
an infection that killed them all. Is it likely that somethng ate the 
Tortoiseshells but left the Peacocks behind?

Last time I loooked I noticed that one of the caterpillars had turned 
grey, but looked otherwise healthy. Fungus infection?

[Sorry if I have the Latin names wrong - no books to hand.]

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