Oh they can crawl away pretty far to pupate. I had a large BST cat on dill and one day he was gone. He showed up about 20 feet away and pupated on a gerber daisy next to the deck by the back door. He pupated successfully. I was amazed at the time how he happened to pick that spot. It gave me a chance to see it first hand for the first time.

I have been blessed with lots of BST this spring, so I brought about 2 dozen or more inside in aquariums. I didn't have lids for them, and probably 8 or 10 escaped to pupate on strange objects in my house such as the back of the TV, inside my son's shoe, the vacuum cleaner, inside VHS boxes etc. I've had a great time watching them and being surprised when they eclosed, not even knowing where some of them pupated, just seeing a butterfly drying it's wings in the living room. I guess I need to get an official butterfly enclosure. Anyone have any suggestions? I've been looking at reptariums, but haven't bought anything yet.

Hey KC, Guess I wasn't around, or at least didn't see this thread until your update. I have lots of experience with holding over hiberating cats in wood all through the winter months, and some with getting wood eater cats through in a preferred wood that had a ways to go before pupating. Somewhat different methods, so I'll just hit on what you are trying to do. It's usually best to use the wood with their own chambers intact, but that is often not a reasonable choice with many plant species. While there are several ways to mimic them as well, some seemed to work better for me, probably because I had total control of their environments. For cats still feeding I'd cut their wood into small blocks, drill an oversized hole all the way through them either across the grain or with it depending on how the cat normally enters the wood. Some bore in through the bark and to an angle, some down from a terminal end or crown as far as into the root system. Soak the blocks to give them a head start on humidity control, and lets them drain for a while. Then I'd plug one end with a cotton ball, insert the cat and plug the other end. Some species spin "frasse cones" at the entrance to their burrows. With those plug what would be the bottom end tight to be your door, the other lightly so the larva can push it out to make a cone if it chooses to do so. The blocks were keep in a flat plastic tray so they didn't touch each other, and marked to be oriented as they would be in nature. Check them as often as you think is needed by pulling a "door" CB to see what the cat is up to, dump/brush out the frasse if needed, then put the CB back and lightly spray the block if you feel more humidity is needed. In time you learn the when's and how much. Another method is to simply put a little water in the tray and let the wood soak it us as needed, but I liked controlling myself it better to hold the mold down. Checking them more often than not is better than over spraying the blocks. If you do see mold starting, cut back on the spraying or water. It's usually a good idea to change to new blocks if mold gets heavy, and once or twice again anyway if the larva is small and has a lot of instars to go through before pupation. Once pupated I preferred to remove same from the blocks and store them in tubes I made that were a slightly snug fit pupal diameter from card stock and with the ends lightly plugged with CB's. The tubes again went into a dry tray spaced, and could be lightly sprayed when needed for humidity. If a species that overwinters as a pupae, the tray was stored on the bottom shelf of a refrigerator and managed there until the following season. When the imago emerges if you are successful it will simply push the CB out to escape the tube (or ecape through the frasse cone), so having the tray in an emergence cage is a good idea. Depending on the size of the species they may simply spread right on the tube, but if in doubt just include something in the cage for them to crawl and climb just before you expect them to start emerging. Either way a quick glance whenever you are near the tray will tell you if something has emerged or is trying to push out a CB. Easier to do than explain, but it works. HTH Along this line, a favorite outing for my son as he was growing up was to take him out for a Meg (Megathymus) or Ag (Agathymus) dig. With these genera a single egg is laid up on the blades, and as soon as it hatches the larva travels down and bores into the crown, then deep below ground level into the roots where they remain until pupation. In the roots of yucca for the Meg's, and agave for the Ag's, and they can be quite deep. Not a problem to get to as most of the yucca they used was in sand dunes, and the agave in loose shale or sandstone. My son would go ahead looking for active frasse cones and flag the plants that had them. Then we'd go back and tunnel down beside the plant to its root system, tap on the top of the tap root to chase the larva down, make a guess where and cut a root section out with any of 2 or 3 types of garden shears we'd take along. If too high, the tunnel is still going down and there is nothing from the cut to the frasse cone dig deeper. If the bottom of the section cut has no tunnel, start from the frasse cone end and start shortening it to find the larvae that freely moves the entire length of it tunnel, and quite fast. By cutting an inch at a time they usually move down and come out the bottom. We always timed our outings to when we knew the larvae had recently pupated or was very close to doing so. So we'd usually come back with a few last instar larva along with all the pupae. Any larva collected, no matter what size had to be brought home and treated as above as long as it took for them to pupate. As for the plants, the tap root is usually choosen by the larva as they get quite large before they pupate. So the plant will soon die anyway. Luckily most have "chicks" already esablished around their base that soon overgrow and replace those attacked by the moths. Since I ran with the county ag officer I always had permits in hand as well if a ranger, etc happened by thinking we were collecting "cactus" illegally. IOW it always pays dividends to be prepared and legal in your lep pursuits. Larry

McPeg....May 1st is May Day...I don't know all the tradition about the May Pole dancing... But we have always made little baskets....put popcorn, a few pieces of candy and picked some spring flowers and put in it. Just about dusk we would take them to our friends house, hang them on the door knob. Knock on the door and run before the caught us. Back then the rule was, if they caught you they got to kiss you...LOL...I don't remember if anyone actually did...in those days a boy would "die" if he had to kiss a girl. Boys didn't like girls until they got a lot older then. When we were little we would make cones out of wallpaper leftovers , use pipecleaners for handles. When my kids were little we would use boxes or paper cups and cover them with crepe paper. I would ruffle it on the sewing maching . We made them very fancy. Now the kids get the large styrofoam cups and we use the perm. ink markers on them. We made 18 of them last night. Not many still carry on that tradition. But we just keep doing it anyway..It's fun. My cousins still get together and make them as a family...their youngest is 11 years old...the oldest one still helping to make them is 75.