Another hungry caterpillar

So our caterpillar saga continues.  Following on from yesterday’s post, my son woke up this morning asking where the caterpillar was –  aargh!!  Well, obviously caterpillar was nowhere to be found in the garden.

We walked to pre-school will eagle eyes looking for another one, nothing.  Nothing when I walked home or back again.  But then, on the way home we found another hairy caterpillar – oh joy – one happy boy.

Another hungry caterpillar
www.over40andamumtoone.wordpress.com Another hungry caterpillar

So I was tasked with carrying it home and instructed not to let it go!  A quick email to Guru Gramps for advice on what to do next ….. As with the first caterpillar, Guru Gramps thinks due to its size and the fact that we found it on the ground, it is getting ready to pupate.

So this is our new friend’s home…

Another hungry caterpillar
www.over40andamumtoone.wordpress.com home for a caterpillar

We’ve covered the box with clingfilm and pierced a couple of holes in it.  Guru Gramps has told us that our little friend will burrow into the soil to spin a cocoon and change to a pupa.  Then we have an approx 4 weeks wait until our Lackey Moth appears 🙂

15 thoughts on “Another hungry caterpillar

  1. Will we get updates on his progress? And photos? I’m interested to see how he gets on now! 🙂

    1. There will be updates, and possibly photo of cocoon if I don’t have to disturb it too much. Have had to send Guru Gramps an email this morning though as Casper is not burrowing and hasn’t eaten any Hawthorn leaves either 🙁 Don’t want him buying on me.

  2. Ah – this takes me all the way back to my childhood. I used to hide caterpillars in matchboxes around the flat to take them for walks the next day. My mum was not very impressed …i must say 😉

    1. oh bless! Our little visitor had managed to escape while I was putting Monkey to bed! He’d sniffed out the hawthorn leaves I’d left by the container and managed to get out of the clingfilm lid – oops. Good job I found him before Daddy P did 🙂

    1. I know! Monkey did a mini beast project at pre-school so I’m hoping he’s going to grasp the whole – once we have a cocoon we have to wait, concept. He wasn’t too impressed when I said we’d end up with a moth rather than a butterfly, but hopefully I can keep him interested.

  3. That’s brilliant! We’ve been a bit inchworm mad in this house (they turn into Geomter Moths!) but although we’ve fed them, we decided to let them go before the cocoon stage! Both boys had caterpillar/butterfly projects at school which was fantastic, they were both fascinated and came home every day to tell me what stage they were at – and were so excited when the butterflies finally appeared!

    1. It’s great isn’t it. We were lucky that we were involved with this kind of thing with my Dad as kids anyway, but in those days you never got up close to the action at school. Great that the really get kids involved these days so they really relate to nature 🙂

  4. Looking forward to seeing the updates on Mr Catterpillar/Moth.
    Always find this stuff fascinating
    Thank you for linking up with The Weekend Blog Hop
    Hope to see you again this weekend

    Laura x x x

I'd love to hear from you and try to reply to all comments