🦋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
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Day 1 - The kit arrives with 5 tiny little caterpillars. They were pretty inactive to begin with but then they started to move about and started to eat the food in the bottom of the cup.
Day 2 - they were already starting to grow in size and continued to munch at the food and spin silk webbing inside the culture cup.
Day 3 - Growth continued and they seemed to develop stripy bands and there was evidence of shedding. These caterpillars will shed their exoskeleton 5 times before forming their chrysalid.
Day 4 - this little one decided to check out the top of the container! The black stuff to the left is part of the exoskeleton that they shed as they grow!
Day 5 - These caterpillars have GROWN! There's lots more webbing in the bottom of the cup and it seems like they have doubled in size overnight! It also looks like they are appearing lighter in colour. 🐛
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! 🐛🦋
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!
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.
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!! 🦋
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)
