Large White Caterpillar. Photo: Ann Barlow

Large White Caterpillars. Photo: Ann Barlow

Ann has sent us these photos of Large White Caterpillars she saw in Corfe Mullen on 15/10/2019.   The first photo is of Large White Caterpillars she spotted in her neighbourhood on a plant which thinks is Hollyhock – she then went on to say that she used to grow hollyhocks as pollinators in her own garden but never saw any caterpillars on the leaves and wondered if this normal? It is difficult to be absolutely certain of the plants’s identity from the photo but Hollyhocks are part of the Malvaceae family (Mallow) and the food plants of the Large White caterpillar are primarily wild or cultivated species of the Crucifereae/Brassicaceae family and in particular cabbage.

The second photo is a close-up of one on Nasturtium and Ann told us they were clearly sheltering from the heavy rain and that a couple of days earlier she had counted 104 of them together with a couple of Small White caterpillars.