CATERPILLAR INVASION

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30369, 19 February 1964, Page 8

CATERPILLAR INVASION

Species New To Country

Small red-spotted caterpillars which invaded a new Rangiora house in hordes last summer had befen identified' as belonging to a European species of moth not previ-. ously reported in New Zealand, Mr L. J: Dumbleton, of the Entomology Division of the Department of .Scientific and Industrial Research, said yesterday. Hie caterpillars climbed up the outside walls of the house and spun cocoons in the carpet. Mr Dumbleton collected some of the cocoons and kept them over the win, ter to see what hatched out. The adult stage turned out to be a stnall, rather pretty, moth with deep orange wing markings on a background of grey. The moth, ; Aristotelia -hermanella, has a New Zealand relative.

Checks with European entomologists showed that the caterpillars lived mainly on fat-hen, which was the host plant in the Rangiora infestation, Mr Dumbleton said. The Rangiora caterpillars had been able to reach such numbers only because the. garden of the house had not been properly cultivated, and they had invaded the house to find somewhere sheltered to pupate. They' had not damaged the carpet in making their cocoons. The only other host plants mentioned by his European informants, Mr Dumbleton added, were species of Atriplex. The new Zealand species of Atriplex were shruibs or herbs of the shoreline or of saline areas inland.