Tuesday, August 10, 2010

Fruit eating larvae in Elaeocarpus

This is a continuation from my previous trip to CCNR.

I couldn’t managed to ID this presumably a fruiting Elaeocarpus tree.

Here are the leaves.


Underside.

A developing fruit with bumps. I initially thought that this is Elaeocarpus nitidus, but can’t confirm it since the fruit size is too small to what Corner described.
  P1000451
KY and WF harvested the fruit again on the weekend. The fruits have grown much larger and seem to fit E. nitidus. However, it is supposed to have 5 seeds and this, one, appeared to have 3 chambers. The seeds are not yet developed to make a confirmation. Hmm, what could this be? Help?

P1000454
While slicing open one of the fruits, KY (and me) jumped away in shock when he saw a big larvae inside.

P1000457 
Apparnetly most of the fruits were infested with this caterpillar? which ate a chamber that fits almost exactly to their size. Wonder what it will grow up to be?

2 comments:

levia said...

It's a caterpillar of a Lycaenid butterfly. Did you rear this ?

SY said...

I'm afraid not.

My friend said it could be Deudorix epijarbas, according to HOSTS and some suggestions from Corbet and Pendlebury (1978).

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