h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I'd give them a go, I am glad you specified though I would have felt such a fool if I had put them in a roll up

How did you try yours Willem?

A beautiful moth, I love the colours, I think they are very elegant, thank you for doing it justice.

I find the pupa stage of their life cycle mind bogglingly amazing and fascinating

Hi again! My caterpillars were dried and roasted a bit. I wouldn't try them again.

I still want to know just what goes on during the transformation process inside the pupa. One of the weirdest things I've seen was pupae (not moths, but plant sucking bugs) where the adult reversed itself back to front: the head of the adult emerge from the pupa where the backside of the larva used to be. Unless I'm hallucinating that ... but I'm pretty sure I saw it for real.

Mopane moth caterpillars, how about marinated with a little fresh chili pepper in tomato stock and/or fried in tempura batter?

Also, frequently, bitter flavors and toxins can be derived from feed-stuffs, that accounting for the bitter flavor and toxicity of the monarch butterfly on the one hand and the toxicity of poison dart frogs on the other.

Does it make a difference what kind of plants the mopane moth caterpillars feed on?




On insects and game farming, observation from dairy and cattle ranching work I've done, cattle tend to congregate in pasturage where the insects, especially grasshoppers, are thickest, but also where other insects are available in quantity as well.

When the insects run out they move on to other areas.

This is probably among the reasons Hindu cattle protection works well for them, providing a measure of natural insect control.

Moving grazing animals to areas where there are elevated insect populations can not only provide better nutrition for the grazers, but also supports insect control.

From a discussion between some Oregon state dairy farmers, during a grasshopper peak, the elevated arachadonic acid in the milk giving it an unusual sweet flavor, one suggested diverting it into chocolate milk production, which struck me as an excellent suggestion.

(Arachadonic acid is an essential fatty acid, a dietary source being essential to human health; the same thing that gives royal jelly and shrimp and lobster their distinctive sweetish flavors.)




On the apparent reversal of the caterpillar during pupation, so head of the insect emerges after, where the tail of the caterpillar was, if you can document that with drawings and supporting photos, it could be an interesting and important study.