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Made a trip to the King Country to collect Admiral caterpillars. I collected 10 large Red Admiral Caterpillars (4th 5th instar) and 20 mini pint sized Red Admiral caterpillars(2nd &3nd instars. Thought this would be enough to start a home population and breed them. Had a few teething problems but managed to get the more mature caterpillars to pupate and now have 4 butterflies hatched and one more to come. Hopefully out of the 5 I should be able to start up a Red Admiral breeding colony and get the experience I am after. My biggest learning curve (and problem)out of this venture is that 20 baby caterpillars just dissapeared. My shadehouse is on concrete and I had the caterpillars on a small leafed annual nettle dug up from the King Country.I couldent figure out just where they went. They just dissapeared. I have had a few years breeding Yellow Admirals ON GRASS in my shadehouse and never had this problem. I think that in a concrete world there is more competition for food. I assume ants have been snacking on my babies. Have now moated my nettles for egg laying….what a hassel!!! If I can get any eggs!!!! Will have to pay the butterflies an early morning visit for a sexing eercise. My main problem for now is what happened to all those babies? Are ants the culprit?
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