During my time in Florida, I spent a lot of time exploring the wetland areas, wading in the shallow waters on the edge of swamps and deep canals and along the banks of the Caloosahatee River. One day I was exploring a swamp area in near the community of Muse, in Glades County, and made a dicovery of my own. I found many long-haired brown caterpillars perched on the frog-bit plants in the swamp eating the leaves. Upon closer observation I saw their feeding technique was similar to us eating corn off the cob.They ate in a saw like fashion across the edge of each leaf and back again with incrediable speed. In a short amount of time each leaf was completely eaten.
I had been reading up on aquatic plants and biological controls, and realized here was my chance to do my own experimental study. I carefully gathered five caterpillars into a bucket of pond water, along with a large handful of frogbit leaves. Carefully I drove home and put the bucket in the garage. The next morning I opened the lid to discover the caterpillars had eaten all the leaves off the plants. Then realizing their enormous appitite I decided to test them on water hyacinth plants to determine if these plants would be devoured as well.
I obtained a very large aquarium with a fine mesh screen lid. Into this aquarium went three gallons of pond water and a few water lettuce plants, three big bunches of water hyacinths and some duckweed and a bit of hydrilla and water milfoil, elodea and filamentous algae. While this may seem to be a large amount of plants, I was trying to recreate a natural swamp setting, from the area the caterpillars were collected.
I also added some water oak branches giving the caterpillars a spot away from the water and perhapes a spot to form their pupae cases. I also collected a few ramhorn snails to keep the tank clear of debris.
Once the caterpillars were introducted into the aquarium they stopped eating and just explored their new home. After three hours they settled in and began eating the water hyacinth plants. And although, they did eat them at a slower rate than the frog-bit plants, it was indeed noted that the water hyacinths were not their favorite food.
Since I had created their living quarters from the swamp I discovered some unexpected additions to the tank. Several small mosquito fish were darting about and their were creamy clear egg clusters, attached to the roots of the water hyacinth plants. Also a few tiny harmless spiders were running about on the leaves of the water lettuce plants.
On the second day I found it necessary to add more pond water as the water hyacinth plants were soaking up lots of water and there was some natural evaporation going on. I also got another big bunch of frog-bit plants for the aquarium, to the dining delight of the caterpillars.
