Who knew? I was pulling down some big leaf pipevine when I found a Great Leopard moth caterpillar. I have found them before in the BH but I just though they were looking for overwintering sites. I brought it home to show the kids. I put pipevine in the container just to keep it humid (this is a new trick of mine. I put non food plant leaves in containers along with food plant leaves to keep it humid). Now I see it is eating the pipevine.

I know this family (Arctiidae, or not discussion below)sequesters a lot of plant chemicals but I would have thought that aristolochic acid would not have been one of them. It is a tough plant to eat and hence most predators leave pipevine caterpillars alone.

Well, I will continue to feed it pipevine and see how it does. I know I brought home one last year and it refused to eat anything.

Now, on to Arctiidae. When I looked up great leopard moth on butterflies and moths, it listed the family as Erebidae, and sub-family as Arctiinae. That through me for a loop as I have always thought it was in the family Arctiidae. So, I looked around, the Wagner book has it as Arctiidae. Granted it was published a few years back. Arctiidae still exists on Wikipedia. So I looked up Erebidae. Turns out that they have created this new family to lump together some of Noctuidae, and all of Arctiidae and Lymantriidae. However, Wikipedia states that use of this group has still not met with general concensus. Good grief!

I just love living in the new era of genetics and computers.

NOT!

-Elisabeth