Yesterday I happened across a random paper on an experiment about turnip sawflies and there defence mechanisms against reptiles, honestly this didn't interest me what had caught my eye was the use of pieris rapae caterpillar's as the "control" feeder insect.
we all know the pieris rapae it's known by a few names from small white to small cabbage white butterfly and the imported cabbage worm (for those over in the states) and I was wondering does anyone use these or have any idea of nutritional value according to the experiment these were taken readily by green anoles.
I assume there nutritional value must be fairly low or they are in some way harmful as they do not contain/contain much lower amounts of distasteful oils than other members of the pieris genus so should be taken quite readily and they are easy to breed and have nice soft bodies and eggs/larva/adults can be picked up free from outside as they are considered a pest in many areas.
we all know the pieris rapae it's known by a few names from small white to small cabbage white butterfly and the imported cabbage worm (for those over in the states) and I was wondering does anyone use these or have any idea of nutritional value according to the experiment these were taken readily by green anoles.
I assume there nutritional value must be fairly low or they are in some way harmful as they do not contain/contain much lower amounts of distasteful oils than other members of the pieris genus so should be taken quite readily and they are easy to breed and have nice soft bodies and eggs/larva/adults can be picked up free from outside as they are considered a pest in many areas.