Insect study shows mothers know best

[tigger]

An interesting article written by a friend of mine, Dr Peter Mayhew at York Uni who has been trying to see if insect mothers do "know best" when it comes to foodplants for their youngsters... and it seems, in the main, that they do (although some are better at it than others!)

Insect study shows mothers know best

[Johnny Redgate]

This looks interesting but unfortunately I can't get at the full paper.

I did some reserach on the Chequered Skipper a few years back and found a wider range of grasses used as larval foodplants than usually quoted. The most consistent features were tall, wide leaved species as the skipper needs to roll the leaf to make a feeding shelter. However, there are more grass species with these characteristics than seem to be used, even on the same site. I also noted Large Skipper on unquoted species e.g. Reed Canary-grass. I suspect the full details of host plant selection in grass-feeding skippers will be interesting but hard to bottom out.

John