Marsh Fritillary Webs

Today I am going for interest rather than photographic prowess.

Did you know that caterpillars can live in webs?

These are Marsh fritillary caterpillars which can be found in webs in September. On warm days they come out and bathe in the sunshine. These little caterpillars hope to survive the winter like this. They are very small at this stage but will grow bigger before pupating in April and flying in June.

They are also very fussy. They only eat Devils bit Scabious and therefore prefer cattle grazed areas to sheep grazed. In Scotland they only live in Argyll so get quite a lot od attention as a declining species.

You can see the caterpillars in the bottom left and the black dots in the web are caterpillar droppings known as frass.

Fun day out on a Marsh Fritillary training day