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Monarch Instructions

Painted Lady Instructions

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Rearing Containers

Myth-conceptions

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ALWAYS feed new fresh plant growth to young caterpillars!

After hatching, continue to add fresh host plant leaves daily. If your leaves dry out quickly, wet a paper towel and wrap it around the bottom of each stem. Wrap the paper towel with a piece of aluminum foil. This creates a 'vase' which doesn't leak and create a wet mess in the rearing container.

Caterpillar droppings are called 'frass'. The combination of frass and water can create a very large mess! Be sure to clean out their rearing container often. Do not allow mold or mildew to grow in the container.

When your caterpillars grow, be sure to move them to larger containers or to divide the number of caterpillars into several containers.

If you are rearing them on living host plants, your container will be larger of course!

NEVER move a caterpillar if it will not move its back legs (prolegs) on its own. Tickle its back end with your finger or a leaf. If it does not crawl, it may be molting.

Caterpillar skin never grows. When a caterpillar grows too large for its skin, it will molt. It will lay a mat of silk with its spinnerets located on its 'bottom lip'. It will lock its back legs (prolegs) into this mat and sit for about 24 hours.

It has withdrawn its head into the body part of the skin, leaving the head capsule empty.

After 24 hours its head capsule will pop off and it will slowly walk out of its outer skin. After its new skin has dried, it will turn and eat its old skin.

The period of time between molting is called an instar. Most caterpillars have 5 instars.

After your caterpillar is about two weeks old, it will again lay a mat of silk. It will again grasp and lock its back legs (prolegs) into this mat. After a short while, it will let go with their other legs and hang in a 'J' position. It is preparing to change into a chrysalis, or pupate.

So often this miracle is missed. Here is how to tell when it is about to pupate.

After hanging for about 24 hours, it will go limp. Your caterpillar will almost look like a dead caterpillar hanging straight like an 'I'.

When your caterpillar is hanging like an 'I', watch for it to start moving like an accordion. Its skin will split at its head. It will continue to move like an accordion and work its skin up to the silk mat. This process takes about three minutes.

After the skin has worked up to the silk mat, it will extend its cremaster, a tiny grasper, and grasp the silk mat. The cremaster grabs with little hooks, somewhat like Velcro. After the cremaster has grasped the mat, it will twist and turn while working the hooks deeper and deeper into the mat. During this twist and turn time, the skin usually falls off. When it does so, the head capsule is still attached. Look for it when your caterpillar has pupated!

Do not move your caterpillar while it is pupating or for a few hours afterward. After 24 hours its outer skin will harden and you can touch the chrysalis.

If it has pupated in an awkward spot or a spot where it does not have three inches below the chrysalis, wet the silk mat and gently pull the chrysalis away from the spot where it pupated. Be gentle! The chrysalis will break at the cremaster if you tug too hard. If it does not easily move, wet the silk again and use a paperclip or the tip of a sharp knife to pull at the silk mat.

You can use a straight pin and pin through the silk mat, attaching the chrysalis where it is hanging and has three inches or more below it. Or if the silk mat didn't come off with the chrysalis, use a cool temp glue gun and glue your chrysalis to a paper towel and pin the towel where it will be in a place where it will hang with two inches or more below it. Let the glue cool a bit before gluing the cremaster to the paper towel. The chrysalis is alive and hot glue will burn it like it burns our fingers!

An alternative is to glue it to an earring hook. These can be purchased at craft stores. When glued to a hook, paperclip, or safety pin, it is easy to hook or pin it where you wish.

Painted Lady butterflies use gravity to emerge properly and to expand its wings. If your butterfly cannot hang upon emerging, it may not be able to fly. If its wing tips expand and drag the bottom of its emerging container, the tips of the wings will be crippled. Leave two inches at least from the lowest point of the chrysalis. This is more than sufficient. Because Painted Ladies are smaller, at times they will emerge and expand their wings without gravity's help but very often they are crippled and unable to fly properly if at all.

Mist your chrysalis daily. Air conditioning and heating will dehydrate your chrysalis and it could die or not be able to fully emerge as a healthy butterfly. A spray bottle filled with water is sufficient. If your chrysalis is attached to a removable hook, simply dunk it under a faucet once or twice a day.

A chrysalis 'breathes' though holes called spiracles in its side. Even so, it can be under water for many minutes without any damage or harm coming to it.

Your Painted Lady will take from one to two weeks from pupation to emerge as an adult.

When a butterfly emerges from its chrysalis, it is called eclosing.

So often this miracle is missed. Here's how to tell when your butterfly is about to emerge (eclose).

The day before a Painted Lady emerges; it will start to show through the chrysalis shell. You will notice it turning dark before you notice its orange wings through the chrysalis shell. Usually it will emerge in the morning.

At first the chrysalis outer shell will look like glass or plastic wrap. When it begins to look like wax paper, cloudy and unclear, you know it will emerge shortly. It may still take a couple of hours but start to watch much closer! You will see a slight movement as it pushes the shell apart and slowly crawl half out of the chrysalis and swing its abdomen down.

If it falls, it will need something it can crawl up to hang again. A paper towel taped or hung by the chrysalis is usually all that is needed.

Watch closely! At first its proboscis (tongue) is in two pieces. You can see it work the proboscis and 'zipper' it to one 'tongue'.

Its 'palps' on either side of the proboscis will open and close repeatedly.

Watch its abdomen work like a pump, pumping fluid into its wings. After the wings are pumped to full expansion, the butterfly will rest until the wings dry. It cannot fly while its wings are soft.

MYTH-CONCEPTION: After a period of time it will expel reddish-brown fluid, meconium, which looks like old blood. Many of us have been taught, and have taught, that this fluid is left-over from pumping its wings but this is not so. This expelled fluid is the last remains of its last meal as a caterpillar. It is not blood; it is simply 'liquid frass'.

Allow your butterfly to fully dry, at least three hours, before releasing it outdoors. Waiting a day may be a better option.

If you wish to see if your butterfly stays around your garden, take a fine-tip magic marker and write your name or initial on the underside of a hindwing. Or, if you prefer, write the date the butterfly emerged. You may see it two or three weeks later drinking nectar, looking for a mate, or laying eggs on host plants you have planted in your garden.