🦋Beautiful Butterflies 🦋
The warm and humid weather makes June the perfect time for butterflies to start emerging and fluttering through wildflowers and gardens.
There are approximately 18,500 named species of butterflies all over the world. Here is a quiz to identify some of the more common UK species: https://www.sporcle.com/games/Woorsie/uk-butterflies-picture-click
I have purchased a butterfly kit and the caterpillars were sent to me in a culture pot and in 2-3 weeks, they will eat, spin silk, and grow until they are 10x bigger than they were when they arrived. When they are ready, they will form chrysalides and then in another 1-2 weeks, they will emerge as Painted Lady butterflies! (pictured above)
If you’d like to join me in watching their journey, just subscribe to this post!
You could also join in by sharing any photos you capture of butterflies in your area
Feedback & Ideas Form Share your ideas!
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Day 6 - It is so fun watching their 'Mexican wave' like movements and when they explore around the cup, because of the webbing they have spun, it almost looks they are walking on air! They have also eaten a huge amount of the food in the cup so I think it could be a matter of days rather than another week until they are ready to go through their transformation! The time it takes for them to reach this stage varies from 7 to 14 days and the weather has a huge impact on that. It's currently very warm here so I think that has accelerated their growth!
Thank you all so much for your interest and enthusiasm in these caterpillars' journeys! 🐛🦋
@Lou73 amazing to follow this and yes, wow they have GROWN !
Listening - One Step At A Time!
@Lou73
It's amazing how fast they develop in the proper conditions! It's great to see the progress each day!
I know my sister has done different insect hatching kits, another fun one is praying mantis, maybe I should see if I can get one of those and document their development as well.
Thank you again for letting us all get to experience this with you!
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@EmotionsListener I know right! I was expecting them to grow much slower but the weather has made a big impact.
Oooh that sounds like fun too!
You're very welcome, I'm glad to be sharing it and that others are enjoying it 🤗🦋
@Lou73
I did a bit of research about the praying mantis, and as a result have a bit of a caveat for any who may want to do this themselves. Try to ensure any eggs you get are for a native species for your area!
The one site that has those which are the native species only has eggs available until the beginning of May, so it would be a project for next year if I decided to give it a try. While other sites would still send me eggs, they would be non-native mantis species for my location which I consider a really big no no even if I were not going to intentionally release them.
The site that is more careful about native species had a few other kits, but the butterflies and mantis seem like the only ones I would personally enjoy. They did have a type of beetle kit, but the beetles even said very clearly that you are not supposed to release them, which makes me question why they even offer them as I suspect many people do end up releasing them. 🥺
That is really interesting and some very good points that needed to be looked into @EmotionsListener.
I think, for this very reason about native species is why this butterfly kit is only for Painted Lady butterflies as they are long-distance migrants and are the most widespread of all butterfly species! They are also very hardy and resourceful and can live in a wide variety of environments. They can even be released in urban area as they can fly thousands of miles to find food! 🦋
Day 7 - The caterpillars seemed really interested in the top of the cup today which makes me wonder if they are almost ready move onto the next stage!
@Lou73
It does somehow look that way doesn't it? It's amazing the kinds of information you can glean from even those small changes their behaviour, they definitely have grown bigger still in the last 24 hours!
Day 8 - exciting things are happening!!
In the morning, 2 of the caterpillars had started to form that 'J' shape!
By the afternoon, one had started to form the chrysalide! And another 3 were starting to form the J shapes.
(Image has been refused so I can't show you the evening pic 🐛😔)
By the evening, 2 chrysalides had formed, 1 was still hanging in the J shape and the other 2 had been eating more food and exploring the top of the cup again.
It's been a lot of progress in one day and I was surprised how quickly the chrysalides formed. This is a really delicate stage in the process so I moved them to a more stable surface for the next part.
@Lou73 I love following this thread. It's so interesting!
@Lou73 ooh we will have baby butterflies soon!
Day 9 - By the morning, 3 had hardened into chrysalides whilst the other 2 were hanging out in the J position getting ready.
By early evening, all 5 have become chrysalides!
Now I have to wait for 3 days until they can be moved into their new habitat.
Glad you are enjoying it @PatienceImpatiens! And @MistyMagic, we still have a little bit longer to go but they are on their way!! 🦋
Love Butterflies. Chrysalis away little Painted Ladies, Chrysalis away!
Day 10 - (Day 1 of next stage) Not much visible change but here is some detail of the chrysalis. I think the bumpy parts were once the caterpillars' spinules (the spikey looking parts)
@Lou73
In some ways I find this the hardest part of the process, you want to see what's happening inside and the transformation that is underway.
Thank you for taking the time to document this entire process and share it with us!
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@Lou73
So beautiful! 💙
Day 11 - not much observable change but I did see one or two of them shaking about.
Day 12 - it's moving day! Now that the chrysalides are as strong as they can be, I carefully removed the lid of the cup and placed it into the 'Chrysalis station'. I used a cotton bud to carefully remove any silk webbing - this is important as otherwise their wings could get caught up in it when they emerge. I then placed them inside the pop-up habitat, close to the edge of it so they have something to hold on to when they are ready.
Who would like to name one?
1 - bottom, 2-left, 3 - top left, 4 - top right, 5 - right
@Lou73 wowowowow!
1 - bottom, 2-left, 3 - top left, 4 - top right, 5 - right
very tricky!
Listening - One Step At A Time!
@Lou73
Will one of them be Lou Jr? I have a bit too much fun coming up with overly complicated names for things so they may be butterflies before I picked a name. 🦋
It so interesting to watch even how the chrysalis changes as they develop.
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1-- Lou, Jr.
2--Emo
3--Misty
4-Sun
5-- Angel
@PatienceImpatiens 😂 awesome love it!
As Pat the Cat, my job will be to swat at all the Beautiful Painted Lady Butterflies!
Hehe great suggestions @PatienceImpatiens! and lol the butterflies will come and land on pat the cat's nose! 🦋
@PatienceImpatiens you will have your work cut out, we are fast and fluttery 💙🦋
Lou, I always loved doing this butterfly project when I was a Teacher (currently semi-retired). One of my favorite photos is the whole class of children clumped around us adults as we carefully released the butterflies into the wild. Some of the butterflies would take a little prompting to fly off. It was a special thrill that never got old.
