I like you idea but I did leave it to go on with its business on the track up Mt Tennant. I'll put it on inaturalist, maybe some can work it from there. 😀😎
If a population of a species is stable, every pair of adults will on average produce 2 more the next year, but moths typically lay say 200 eggs, so a caterpillar in the wild will typically have only a 1% chance of surviving. Leaving a caterpillar in the wild is a virtual death sentence.
Mother nature she pretty tough, I mainly been dealing with european wasp over the last couple of years. So most nest produce on average around 1k next generation queens. In european they believe only 2%of these queens will be successful in going on to compete a cycle and rear the next generation. Where in Australia and NZ, the estimated around 30% will compete the cycle.. pretty interesting.