Dear Friends Few days ago we had an email regarding leaves required for Red Pierrot caterpillars. Said person collected 35+ caterpillars of Red Peirrot and ran out of leaves. I still didnt understand the thing of collecting 35 caterpillars. What is need of collecting so many caterpillars when u didnt have leaves to feed them. i really feel sad abt the fact that no one on our group has asked that person to leave the caterpillars on plant and rear only few caterpillars. Instead all of us shared host plant name with it. I think one or two caterpillars are sufficient for purpose of documentation. One might argue that many caterpillars die due to infection, parasites etc. I think all the people who are interested in documenting life cycles should think twice before collecting caterpillar from the field. As a community of Butterflyindia we should take some responsibilty towords conservation of butterflies.
Regards Rohan Lovalekar -- Enjoy
