What do caterpillars eat?
Almost all caterpillars eat plant materials. Most eat leaves, but some eat seeds, seed pods, or flowers. The caterpillar of the Harvester butterfly eats aphids.
How to feed caterpillars?
The most difficult part in raising butterflies is to provide your caterpillars with fresh cuttings from the host plant appropriate for the species of caterpillar you are raising. Caterpillars are very picky eaters. Each species will only eat very specific plants. Therefore, in order to take care of a caterpillar, it is important to know what kind of caterpillar it is, and what that kind of food it eats.
A good rule of thumb is that a caterpillar is most likely to eat the kind of plant you found it on. If you are in doubt about what kind of caterpillar you have found, it is best to let it go. Caterpillars will starve to death before they will eat the wrong food. Once you have found the correct food, remember your caterpillars must always have fresh food! Caterpillars will not eat old or dry leaves.
The easiest way to feed your caterpillars is to provide them with a live, potted plant in their cage. However, because many host plants are large bushes or trees, this is not always possible. Therefore, it is best to provide new cuttings of host plant everyday. We use small plastic cups filled with vermiculite and water to hold the cuttings and stop the caterpillars falling into the water.
If you cut too much food at once, give some of it to your caterpillar and put the rest in a glass of water in refrigerator until you are ready to use it. This will keep the food fresh longer.
Always carefully inspect your fresh plant cuttings for spiders or insects. It is very disappointing to find that you have inadvertently fed your caterpillars to a very fat and happy spider! Caterpillars receive all the water they need from the plants they eat so you don’t have to provide any additional water.