I had this same thing happen last year and wonder if other people have noticed this about them. When they're tiny cats, I'm not even sure if they eat any of their host plant before they crawl off and go somewhere on the container that they're in. Right now the ones that hatched are on the sides, top, and bottom of the container that I have them in. They turn their heads from side to side like they're searching for something. Last year I tried putting them back on the host plant, but most of the time they wandered right back off again. It's very frustrating. This year I've decided they're on their own in that respect. I'm not intervening. If they crawl back on, good for them. If not, then I guess they'll starve. I have them in a very small container with several pieces of rue, so they're not far from their food. Last year I had a lot die, and I have no idea if it was from straying from their food or from my moving them back on multiple times.

I had mentioned at least a month ago that I'm not having much luck with GST's eclosing. Well, I still haven't had any more than just the one GST cat that overwintered eclose this year (and that was back in May), and the rest of the pupas are still sitting around in their containers. I'll keep them until the end of next summer, but then I'm putting them outside somewhere. I need the space for the kinds of butterflies that I have success with. My husband didn't even know why I'm bothering to try to raise the GSTs again after the little success I've had with them so far.

I don't know if the GST mom left now or not since our temps have gotten cooler. I think so because there have been no eggs laid for almost a week now, and I haven't seen her either. In 3 days last week she laid over 50 eggs on the rue plants, which I promptly brought inside (hence, the tiny cats I'm talking about). I noticed that there were spiders lying in wait on the plants when I was gathering the eggs last week. So at least I saved the eggs/cats from them and other predators and parasitoids. Whether I'll have success with them this year is anyone's guess. I hope so, because I like them a lot even if they do resemble bird poop.

Cathy