No, sorry Welsh, it's definitely not a leatherjacket. Leatherjacket larvae are immature daddy long legs and I was once "cut" by one on the finger. What can chew a root can chew a finger!
waterbutts, I guess you were cut by handling the spines on the cranefly pupa, they have spines so they can move up or down underground during wet and dry periods (from Dove's link above), but in the pupal stage it will not eat.
As has been said - lots of these brown pupa cases look similar, only when the creature emerges will we know what it is.
To clarify chrysalis, it is the pupal stage of a butterfly, so it is a pupa. A pupa though, if it contains (e.g.) a cranefly, is not a chrysalis. I think. Too easy to get confused.
So far as I know, true flies, members of the diptera group, have only three stages, egg, larva and imago. They don't pupate. Leatherjackets are the larval stage of the crane fly's development and they most definitely do chew. They are a well-known eater of the roots of lawn grasses.
The photo that initiated this thread shows a chrysalis of the Noctuidae group of moths. That is the pupal stage which occurs between larva and imago. Pupae don't eat, that is true.
It would be a shame to squish a chrysalis if you don't know what you are squishing. It may be a friend or at least something to admire when it hatches out..
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No, sorry Welsh, it's definitely not a leatherjacket. Leatherjacket larvae are immature daddy long legs and I was once "cut" by one on the finger. What can chew a root can chew a finger!
this is a chrysalis, leatherjackets are crane fly larvae and are dirty grey in colour
In the sticks near Peterborough
waterbutts, I guess you were cut by handling the spines on the cranefly pupa, they have spines so they can move up or down underground during wet and dry periods (from Dove's link above), but in the pupal stage it will not eat.
As has been said - lots of these brown pupa cases look similar, only when the creature emerges will we know what it is.
To clarify chrysalis, it is the pupal stage of a butterfly, so it is a pupa. A pupa though, if it contains (e.g.) a cranefly, is not a chrysalis. I think. Too easy to get confused.
Sorry Peter, I really don't care for the esoteric difference, I still squish them.
I thought everybody liked butterflies Welshonion
In the sticks near Peterborough
So far as I know, true flies, members of the diptera group, have only three stages, egg, larva and imago. They don't pupate. Leatherjackets are the larval stage of the crane fly's development and they most definitely do chew. They are a well-known eater of the roots of lawn grasses.
The photo that initiated this thread shows a chrysalis of the Noctuidae group of moths. That is the pupal stage which occurs between larva and imago. Pupae don't eat, that is true.
It would be a shame to squish a chrysalis if you don't know what you are squishing. It may be a friend or at least something to admire when it hatches out..
I love butterflies, but I guarantee that thing will not hatch out into a butterfly or handsome moth. It is not a chrysalis but a pupa of a baddie.
In general I am a conservationist in the garden and seemingly in the house as I had a bat flying around my head as I watched TV the other night.
Perhaps little weeeed can capture the next one and keep it until it hatches and tell us all what it is.
I don't know whether to laaugh or cry
In the sticks near Peterborough
Yeah. A little weed always causes confusion. You know what I mean.
I think I'll drink gin
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.