Unfortunately, there isn't much you can do; after the wing has dried in a bent position, it will not straighten out. The most humane thing to do is to euthanize by putting the butterfly in the freezer. When I have to do this, I put the butterfly in a zippy bag and place it in the freezer for at least a week.

We do our best to help out the butterflies and sometimes they just don't make it, no matter what we do. But it is better to try to help them out than not. I have read that in the outdoors, only 1 in 100 eggs makes it to adulthood (butterfly). My success rate (with bringing the eggs/cats inside) is about 95%. I still have those that do not make it on occasion, but we do the best we can.

Mechelle

Thank you Mechelle for your response. I thought it was too late for me to do anything. After about an hour I put it in the freezer. I have one more pupa which is 3 days younger than the one that eclosed today. Wouldn't you know that we are going out of town in 3 days! So I can leave it and miss seeing it eclose or put the plant in a pot and take it with me in the car. Hmmm.

Sylvia

Guess I take a slightly different approach to this problem.

Birds have to learn individually that monarchs are poisonous, so a monarch we raised last spring that had deformed wings was turned loose in the yard. I would prefer a bird learn on a monarch with no chance of survival than on one that has a chance of reproducing and furthering the species.

As Steve Irwin would have said, "It's natures way!"

randy

One thing I try to have in my container is a stick or foliage for the butterfly to climb up on if it drops. It can climb up to dry wings. But if it was sick, nothing would have helped. Monarchs have a fairly high rate of illness in the summer. Someone here told us to put them in frig first for a day and then freezer. That way they go numb in a gentler way before the freeze. That made a lot of sense to me and is what I now do. I know how sad you feel.