Can anyone identify strange object found in porridge box...cocoon or crysallis?

[yorksgirl]

Found in box of porridge sachets.

Is it a cocoon or crysallis and if so, can anyone tell me what is going to emerge and

what should one do with it currently?

What plant would it normally be hiding on at the moment? I try to be as nature-friendly as possible but actually don't fancy it hatching or whatever in the kitchen. Seems quite large.

[ianr]

Can you perhaps entice it into posing again but getting a better focused picture, with maybe a ruler or coin beside it for size judgment. Not that that'll help me identify it at all, but it would make it more interesting.

[yorksgirl]

It's 1.5 inches or 4cm from end to end, curled as it is. Photo is a pretty good image of it. I suppose it must be a cocoon or crysallis but haven't been able to find an image of it online. Looks like it would hatch into a large mainly black/brown moth with white bits?

Looking to know what kind of plant I should try to hide it in so it can slumber on safely until it's time to wake up.

[lameduck]

I hope you did not eat porridge.

Needs to be returned to where was bought etc.

Cant trust any thing any more

[seenbeen]

How do you know it isn't just a mangled clump of porridge mixed in with debris from wherever it was produced? I think those porridge sachets are partly cooked. I would send it back to the manufacturer/supermarket .

[yorksgirl]

It's a moth (probably) cocoon. The wide end is where it would normally attach to a plant(but in this case to a porridge packet!), The thin bit is where the moth / critter will emerge. The Natural History Museum are looking at it, which is v kind. No one else has been able to identify it.

I don't think there is any way of knowing if a caterpillar crawled into the packet in the factory, or in transport, or in the supermarket.

[Sue]

yorksgirl Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> I don't think there is any way of knowing if a

> caterpillar crawled into the packet in the

> factory, or in transport, or in the supermarket.

Nevertheless, if you let either the manufacturer or the place you bought it from know, they may be able to investigate and stop it happening again?

ETA: It's very kind of you to go to such lengths to keep alive whatever is inside it ......

[teddyboy23]

Its a fossilized toilet roll

[yorksgirl]

It's only a lost caterpiller..somehow got into a giant cardboard box. No one as yet can identify it. Apparently no lepidopterists in East Dulwich that might like to adopt it?

[ianr]

> It's only a lost caterpiller..somehow

> got into a giant cardboard box.

I blame the parents.

[Sue]

:))

[yorksgirl]

Think as a moth it must be an orphan, and it is also a long way from home apparently, as various moth enthusiasts have not been able to identify it as a wholesome British moth.

Poor thing has been labelled as probably an invasive species before it even emerges.

Feel I ought to act in loco parentis in these difficult times.

Am trying to keep it alive in a fish tank, in which it will be able to live its brief life without upsetting our native ecology.

[Sue]

Please keep us in touch with its development :)

I suppose the problem is, you don't know what it likes to eat ..... if moths eat once they're moths?