Insert Lore - Live Butterfly Garden

Todd received a very cool gift for his birthday - a kit which permits observation of the caterpillar to butterfly lifecyle, in all its glory. The butterfly 'garden' as it is called is essential a cylindrical butterfly net. On opening the kit there is a certificate, which is used to order the live caterpillars, and you can trigger the process by post or via the internet. 

I followed the internet option and selected a time slot for delivery. The caterpillars arrived on May 2nd and were absolutely tiny. When you see them like this it is hard to believe some of the British species can swell into absolute monsters like the Elephant Hawk Moth caterpillar (see previous article where we found one of these true mini-beasts!). 

Unfortunately I took the first picture a few days after they arrived and by this time our five eager caterpillars had trebled in size. 

The species we received were Painted Lady caterpillars (Vanessa cardui) and, unsurprisingly, they turn into Painted Lady butterflies! You get five caterpillars in a sterile pot, which contains enough food (not typical leaves but a special formula) to facilitate rapid growth and subsequent chrysalis construction. You don't open the pot, it is just a case of observation. 

Four of our charges morphed into monsters and effectively constructed cocoons. The fifth didn't manage to build a suitable metamorphosis chamber, largely on account of the other four deciding he would provide an excellent nutritional resource! Yes, caterpillars will eat their own and, of course, the probability of this occurring is higher in a confined space. Thus we were left with four very interesting cocoons and one caterpillar without a head. 

Look at the size of them after only 9 days! 

After about ten to fourteen days the caterpillars crawled up to the container lid and suspended themselves in preparation for metamorphosis. It is remarkable how much silk they produce and it is not something people regularly associate with butterfly larvae, but they were spinning threads all over the place and ultimately reached the top of their micro-habitat by means of this series of biological nets. 

The cocoons/chrysalides have now been removed from the pot and sit inside the butterfly garden, as per instructions. I will post pictures of them shortly, along with the butterflies, which should be emerging any day now.