Wossat, and willit?

Gascar · #1 (**permalink**) 19-07-2010, 08:21 PM

I think I know who's living in here, but somebody might like to guess.

Plucked from chalk heathland/meadow.

Now if I leave it in its cardboard box, will it emerge or have I done for it?
I'd like to snap it's arrival, and there is similar habitat near where I live, so I'm hoping it'll find it.

Is there a particular time of day or other stimulus which gets the beastie coming out?

I'm not sure how to do the image posting thing..

Jason Green · #2 (**permalink**) 19-07-2010, 09:08 PM

Evening Gas, and welcome to WAB!

It looks like the pupal tent of a Burnet moth to me - right look and habitat. Keep it somewhere that will expose it to daytime light and temperature in real-time, in case this acts as the stimulus for it's emergence at the appropriate time.

Good luck, keep us posted!

Take care,

Jason

aeshna5 · #3 (**permalink**) 20-07-2010, 04:31 AM

Agree it's the puparium of a burnet moth.

Gascar · #4 (**permalink**) 20-07-2010, 08:15 AM

Yup, there were lots about. Near Croydon, Surrey.
Here's one that prepared itself earlier!

Gascar · #5 (**permalink**) 01-08-2010, 12:00 AM

In the patch where I found this, many moths had left the puparium, from the top end, leaving a characteristic little black skin-cast, or something, around the hole.

This one didn't make it.
I left it in the box, with a transparent lid, in the garden. I checked it for several days then forgot about it.
A few days later, there was a little hole in the side of the case.

I took it on and opened the case, to find just the empty black "skin" inside. It had the surface shape of the whole pupa, I think.

What I'm thinking is that something parasitised the pupa at some stage, and ate it from the inside, then bored its way out.
My box wasn't air-tight, so whatever it was had escaped.

Some sort of wasp perhaps?