Experimental design of @sakshiconsultant2002 from Ratnam college.
The caterpillar was found on Phyllanthus urinaria plant.
The Caterpillar was tried feeding on phyllanthus branches, cabbage, and green peas. The caterpillar was alive for 15 days, and died after feeding it with green peas, we are yet to know why exactly caterpillar died?
The experiment shows caterpillar can be grown using phyllanthus, and phyllanthus is the host plant for caterpillar.
Besides this several questions came on cubists on stages of caterpillar, exoskeleton shedding of caterpillar, how do we know the caterpillar is male or female?
Cubists were not aware that caterpillar could mould and shed its exoskeleton.
This was a new observation for cubists. Another question was for how many times caterpillar will mould? @Theertha shared her observation that she had seen caterpillar shedding exoskeleton two times, for growing in size.
@SaraKalamudeen added that we are not able to identify male and female at caterpillar stage as they look similar, only in adult butterfly stage we can identify male or female.
Cubists are also trying to culture caterpillar with corn.
