Monarch eggs / predation / sibling rivalry

Carol Lemmon carol.lemmon at po.state.ct.us
Mon Sep 16 09:28:43 EDT 2002


Personally, I have witnessed sibling rivalry/cannibalism in action when I
reared out a group of Cloudless Sulphur larvae a couple of years back, when
there was a major incursion of them into Connecticut.  The larger larvae
would actively pursue smaller ones when they found them, and would then eat
them.  I seemed like they preferred the taste of their siblings over the
hostplant!

Jeff Fengler


----- Original Message -----
From: "Sunsol" <SUNSOL at prodigy.net>
To: <leps-l at lists.yale.edu>
Sent: Sunday, September 15, 2002 2:41 PM
Subject: Re: Monarch eggs / predation / sibling rivalry


>
> Martha Rosett Lutz <lutzrun at AVALON.NET> wrote in message
> news:v01510100b9a95043a05b@[63.95.18.227]...
> > Did anyone mention this yet?
> >
> > I don't know how significant a factor this is (especially in the field
> > versus the lab), but I have direct evidence that newly-hatched Monarch
> > larvae are predators of Monarch eggs.  Also, older larvae will eat
younger
> > ones.
>
> Martha, have you actually seen caterpillars eat each other? I raise anise
> swallowtails, among other caterpillars. I noticed that when rearing small
> and large caterpillars together, the small ones would disappear. A friend,
> who watched much more closely than I, said that the older ones would knock
> the younger ones off as they fed.
>
> Sally
>
>
>
>
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