That's too small. It could pupate there - it'd just run around in short circles, I guess - but when it emerges as a butterfly, it won't have space enough to exercise its wings. Unless you're talking about putting this cup into a bigger enclosure? Still, I'd at least get a large coke from McDonald's for the bigger cup! :)
Sherry

Yes, I am planning to put the pupa into a larger enclosure. I have a piece of paper towel rubber banded on as a lid, which I plan to move to one of my much larger butterfly enclosures once the caterpillar pupates on it. The reasons I put the caterpillar in this container were: 1, to separate it from a bunch of other caterpillars that would be running into it and otherwise annoying it; and 2, because I would be disturbing it by opening the cage twice or so each day to feed the other caterpillars (7 5th-instar caterpillars in one cage that are all eating a lot - hopefully they will pupate before destroying all of the local violas!) I was thinking of using a one-gallon ice cream bucket, but I only had one more of them that I had altered for butterfly use, and they would take up a lot of space. I think the sundae container is working fine so far, as it looked earlier like the caterpillar was spinning some of the usual silk all around that covers everything in its path.
I could have gone for the coke container, I suppose, but I don't drink soda pop, so that's not an option. ;)
-Jmcat

I agree, bottom at least is too small even for just one small cat.

It was very rare for me to rear a species on a small scale. But even so I had well over a 150 food storge containers altered for them, plus dozens upon dozens of other odd sized containers. I mostly used the square plastic containers that were a little smaller but deeper than sandwich size (what 4X4X3 deep). And the cake pan size (9X12X3?). Chose these sizes as they stacked well in all of my different sized ice chests that I took to the wilds collecting with me, and in both the RV's refridgerator and those at home. I simply cut an appropriately sized square window in the lid, and hot glued a piece of plastic screen over it. A square of paper towel or a paper napkin in the bottom, maybe a light spray of water and they were ready to house from a few to many larve in each one depending on their size. These held them well until I got them home and into the regular larger rearing cages (which might be 2+ weeks sometimes). And in a pinch they worked for isolating wandering larva to pupate in and rearing small batches of larva rather than tie up a regular cage. Easy to clean and sterize for next time too, and very inexpensive. Bet I tossed out 100 plus when I moved, and I still have a ton of them in every size.

I'm jealous of your Variegated Frits! Would love to see them if you can post pics!

Larry, what ingenious tricks you have--great ideas with those containers!

Sorry about taking so long to get back to all of you. I have some of the caterpillars that are currently preparing to pupate in larger containers than I used previously: they are cylindrical, 3 inches tall, four across the top, and they decrease by 0.25 to 0.5 inches across the bottom. I have had three Variegated Fritillarys pupate so far, one in the smaller container that I had earlier, and two in the container I just described. I have 4 large caterpillars preparing to pupate now; 2 in these containers and 2 in larger jars (which have slightly smaller diameters). In addition, I have 4 5th-instar caterpillars that can continue to destroy my dwindling supply of violas.

I did take some pictures of some of these caterpillars last Saturday (I'm very sorry for not posting them before this!). I have pictures of two different color variations. I have/had 8 of the ones with less white on them (first picture) that I found in my yard, and 3 of the ones with more white (second and third) that I found at a place about 5(?) miles from my house. The ones with more white also have much more red on the head capsule.

{{gwi:509451}}

{{gwi:509453}}

{{gwi:509456}}

-Jmcat

Hmmm.....that's interesting about the color variations, Jmcat!
Here's a picture I have of a variegated fritillary/Euptoieta claudia cat -
{{gwi:461960}}
I'm not sure which one of yours looks most like mine.
Sherry

I call this walkies and sometimes in PVS it can go on for a couple of days. Penny