Cabbage White Butterfly

As you would know the Cabbage White Butterfly starts off as a caterpillar. This caterpillar is a velvety, plain green colour. It is a similar colour to the leaves which it damages so much. This caterpillar also feeds on other vegetables related to the cabbage such as turnips and radishes.

The eggs are yellowish and are somewhat bottleshaped with vertical ridges. When the caterpillar is mature, a pale yellow line forms on his/her back. Yellow spots are formed on the sides. Its cacoon is the same colour as its surroundings.

In summer the butterfly emerges from the cacoon after about two weeks. The upper surfaces of the wings are white with black tips to the forewings, and a light black spot on the front margin of the hindwings. Males and females are only slightly different. In the middle of each forewing, the the male has only one spot but the females have a pair of black spots. On both female and male the underside of the front wings are quite the same.

This butterfly was found outside Europe in Canada in 1860. It had spread to California by 1883, then Hawaii by 1893 and then New Zealand by 1930. Soon it reached Melbourne in 1939. It spread across the length and breadth of Australia in only four years, reaching Perth in 1943. The damage it caused to crops prompted the Victorian Government in 1941 to import a natural enemy - the parasitic wasp. Then in 1942 C.S.I.R.O brought in another kind of parasitic wasp. Then in 1957 C.S.I.R.O started spraying with a virus disease which attacks and kills Caterpillars. Now they are still trying to control the pest by using chemicals such as IMP. The Cabbage White butterfly is still the most common in Sydney and Melbourne.

Date: Sat, 18 Apr 1998 21:59:18 +0200
From: Margaret Dugmore <margaret@dugmore.wcape.school.za>
To: elanora@zip.com.au
Subject: Message for Michelle and Jessi 4/5S

Hello Michelle and Jessi,
I visited your Insect pages this evening and was interested to see that the Cabbage White is a pest in your country too! We think it came to South Africa on container ships with fruit and vegetables. I like to grow Rocket (do you know it?) and this year we really struggled to get any leaves to eat. My grandchildren, aged 6 and 3, helped me pick off the caterpillars each day. We used to stamp on them! I love Rocket and wish I knew how to get rid of the pests.

Love from
Margaret Dugmore in Cape Town, South Africa

Research by Michelle and Jessi 4/5S

Elanora Heights Primary School Computer Co-ordinator : Judith Bennett

This page was last modified on 21st April, 1998