Walking along the path to the 360 hide yesterday, I noticed there seemed to be a fair amount of a yellow flowered plant. On looking more closely I realised it was ragwort and after looking even more closely I realised some of the plants were covered in yellow and black striped caterpillars.
Cinnabar moth caterpillars on ragwort (Image by Neil Smith)
Ragwort is poisonous to animals such as cows and horses but insects love it. Cinnabar moth caterpillars feed almost exclusively on ragwort. The eggs are laid on the plant so when the larvae hatch out they can start munching away. The caterpillars absorb the toxins in the ragwort which means they are very unpleasant to eat. For this reason they have yellow and black stripes to warn predators. If they survive they turn into the brightly coloured cinnabar moth, so called after the red mineral cinnabar because of the red patches on its wings.
Cinnabar moth (rspb-images.com, Chris Shields)
It’s quite amazing to think that a plant that can be a major problem for some animals is also essential for feeding for others. Pretty crazy!!