By Dejeanne Doublet, intern Conducting research with insects means that you must take on the roles and duties of a caretaker.
This summer we worked with the caterpillar species Spodoptera exigua (beet armyworms) and their close relative Spodoptera frugiperda (fall armyworms). Both species were shipped to us in sheets of eggs containing roughly 1,000 caterpillars. Most caterpillars start out their lives as eggs on leaves. They usually don’t get to pick and choose their food at the beginning of their lives, and are usually forced to eat from the plant or tree where they hatched.
Some caterpillars will enter a wandering stage once they’re big enough. They may wander about from plant to plant, picking and choosing what they like best or they may stay put at one type of plant for the rest of their life.
[metaslider id=433]
When you’re a caterpillar shipped to a lab with 999 other caterpillars, though, you don’t necessarily get to have an all-you-can-buffet of cuisines. Our lab doesn’t quite function like a Subway and you can’t always have it your way. However, we do make sure you’re eating all your nutrients and vitamins with a homemade concoction of Lepidoptera food.
The recipe consists of more than a dozen ingredients that are simply mixed into boiling water. Click here for the full recipe. Once the ingredients are mixed together, they form a thick substance that cools down to form a tapioca pudding-like concoction.
We poured the finished food goo into 8 oz. plastic containers, allowed it to cool, then placed small pieces of the sheets containing caterpillars eggs on top of the food. We then placed the containers in a 30 ºC chamber under lights that mimic a 16-hour day and 8-hour night cycle. The caterpillars usually begin to hatch a day from when they arrive as eggs. Within a few days, they’re growing and eating and growing and eating.
Interesting article thanks.
Can you share your recipe? I didn’t see the link. I ordered painted lady butterfly caterpillars for class but they sent us more than we had food for.
Of course! However, I should tell you that the recipe I used is actually fairly complex and includes 16 ingredients that have to be purchased in bulk from an insect diet supplier. All diets I know of require the purchase of specialized lepidoptera vitamins, at the very least.
Alternatively, you can get pre-made diets pretty cheap from Frontier Ag Services (formerly BioServ).
http://www.insectrearing.com/products/lepdiets.html
If you want, I can email you the diet recipe, but I think purchasing premade diets will be cheaper.
Can you post the ingredients? We have baby caterpillars from butterfly eggs that were just laid.
The link for the recipe doesn’t work. Could you send it? Thank you so much!
This journal article has the recipe in but it will probably be easier to buy it ready made (unless you are in the UK like I am) 🙁
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4743618/
Hi…
Can you please email me the recipe so I can check out how complex it is!!
I would love the recipe! We have caterpillars that hatched yesterday and our food we ordered hasn’t come yet!
Hello.
I really need the recipe for caterpillar food, and every link I press either doesn’t work or doesn’t have recipe. I clicked one that wasn’t even in English. I’m in the UK and the cheapest ready made ingredients is £44 for only 33 caterpillars and not delivered until the end of July. No good for us as we have eggs hatching and more than 33 . Thanks.