There are three of these beautiful and distinctive pupa attached to the side of my house and they appeared about 2 weeks ago - 19mm in length. (*photographed with a DSLR, 35-80mm lens and macro extension rings) They are clearly the pupa of a butterfly or moth and are all of the same species. The caterpillars must have crawled quite some distance to get to the side of the house, as the wall is separated from the plants and flowerbeds by a wide concrete walkway, so I can only assume that some genetic trigger in their little brains says that they must find a wall of significant height so that when hatching from the pupa they are well above the ground. Each of the beautiful pupae have a square of 4 highlighted spots, almost as if they have been delicately gold leafed. Q - How does a small caterpillar judge the height of the thing that it is climbing ? What species are these ? - I have so much to learn.
Surface detail:
Jo Donnelly, (Ecologist) - Identified my last caterpillar as probably that of a 'Grass knot moth'
Thankyou Jo.
Note: Thanks Ads - as I note that you had already come to the same ID conclusion in the comment stream attached to blog post, thanks also.
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