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Butterfly Garden

Question - an awkward place to pupate

7 years ago

I have a question for the butterfly-raising experts. I have five black swallowtail pupas (pupae?) in a pop-up mesh cage. Four out of the five (all at different times) chose to attach themselves hanging from the seam along the top of the cage, like so (two of the four are in this picture)

Fine so far. Then, the fifth, which took its sweet time getting ready to pupate and didn't get to it until several days after the others finished, decided while I wasn't looking to attach itself to the *underside* of the piece of paper towel that is on the bottom of the cage. I guess the paper towel was not lying flat all the way around and there was just enough clearance under there for the caterpillar to attach itself underneath. It hasn't finished and shed its caterpillar skin yet, but it's in the "comma" stage. Can't see it too well in this picture, but I have pulled up the paper towel further than it originally was from the cage floor.

Should I do something to move the chrysalis to another part of the cage, maybe take the piece of paper towel and attach it to the top or sides? (I would not do this until the chrysalis is fully formed, in any case, which should be in another day or so.) I'm concerned that the butterfly will get caught under the paper towel as it tries to emerge, and get its wings bunged up. But maybe that isn't really a problem, because the paper towel is light enough for the butterfly to push it off. I would welcome the voices of experience!

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Comments (5)

Jacob Berg
7 years ago
Just rip the part of the paper towel with the chrysalis on it and hang it on the side. But do wait until its fully formed and Hardened
weed30 St. Louis
7 years ago
You don't even have to hang the paper towel, just flip the paper towel over so when it ecloses, it won't be stuck under the towel. This has happened to me before... it will be fine! Sometimes I will prop a stick up right next to my "floor babies" so they find something to crawl up right away.
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weed30 St. Louis
7 years ago
And by the way, I've also had them pupate *on each other*! Like a pupae sammich! They were all fine :)
theparsley
Original Author
7 years ago
Ha! I wondered at times if they were going to duplex like that, when I saw the wanderers walking right over the ones that had already pupated.
theparsley
Original Author
7 years ago
Coming back to report that this stubborn little straggler FINALLY eclosed this morning, after napping for over a month! It's another male, looks normal and healthy. This batch of 5 had four males and one female, but the sister and brothers are long ago released and fluttered off. Now I can finally remove the awkwardly sewed-on piece of paper towel from the side of the cage...

...just in time for my next brood of caterpillars, which started hatching today on my parsley plants outside. Too tiny for photos, but with a magnifying lens I saw the caterpillars emerging from the round eggshells. It never ends!

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