Links - Click links below to navigate site
 
Text and photographs protected by Copyright © David McCormick 2009, unless otherwise stated, and must not be reproduced or published in part or in whole elsewhere without prior written permission from the author.
 
This website is designed to be viewed on Internet Explorer at a resolution 1024x768 or higher, and may not reproduce correctly on Firefox or other browsers.
 
Welcome to Daves Moth and Butterfly World -
Breeding With Caterpillars

Welcome to Dave McCormick's Moth and Butterfly World. Here is information on how to breed butterflies and moths.

This section is going through some changes and there is no information for you at present. Keep checking back to see if there has been changes. But here is a brief introduction that might help you understand the basics, such as laws, rules and being responsible.

Introduction

 Before you begin breeding butterflies and moths, there are some things you have to be aware of before you start breeding and once you understand these, you can learn the basics of breeding and have an enjoyable experience with it.

Where did you get the caterpillars/eggs/pupae from?

If you don't know where they came from, I'd strongly advise against releasing them in wild. Even if that species of butterfly or moth is present in areas you know of, if you don't know where they came from, the livestock could be the wrong subspecies, form or even carry a disease and this could be very bad to the populations out in the wild. 

Predators and other Causes

If you find out that the butterflies/moths you have are the right species and you think they can be released in an area, first, always contact your local butterfly conservation if you have one. Next think of what could happen if extra butterflies/moths of a species appeared because of what you did. Sure this could seem like a good thing to do for a species, but is it really?

An increase in a butterfly/moth species could increase predators that would feed on that species, dramatically reducing that species numbers which not only means the ones you released, but the current population that was there before too. This could also mean that after the predators can't find enough of that species to attack, they could move onto another species.

Decrease in foodplants could also happen because of the extra amount of that butterfly/moth species. With extra butterflies/moths around come extra foodplant needs. Naturally in the wild, unless something happens to the habitat and the plants in it, usually there will be enough foodplants for the species to continue surviving because butterflies/moths won't usually lay more eggs than a foodplant can take, but with releases, unless you know exactly what your doing, it could affect this balance.

Is it legal?

This is important for two things, releases and taking stock from the wild. People in the UK in past have made releases and usually they have been bad. The Map (Araschnia levana) was released in parts of England, because it feeds on nettle plants, but the species did not survive.

 This species was deliberately introduced in 1912 with the butterfly becoming established. The two known sites were the Forest of Dean in Monmouthshire, and Symond’s Yat in Herefordshire. The well-known entomologist A.B. Farn was so opposed to the deliberate introduction of a foreign species that, in 1914, he deliberately collected and destroyed every individual he could find. However, the ultimate demise of the colonies is generally believed to have been caused by additional (and unknown) factors. Under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 it is now illegal to release a non-native species into the wild.

Taking stock from an area, unless you are going to breed with it and return them back to where you found it, can be bad or even illegal. In some cases, its illegal to remove butterfly/moth species from wild at all for various reasons, such as to protect a species from extinction, protection of the land and so on.

If you see species being sold as livestock online, always ask yourself, where are they getting the stock from?  Taking species from certain places in the wild, just to benefit breeders is not really a good thing to do. Yes, it may give some people pleasure, it can harm the species populations in certain areas and have a bad effect on them. If you see places doing this without a very good reason, boycott such places and try and let people know about them.

Page last edited: 18/09/2009 13:51

(c) David McCormick 2009