Painted Lady Butterflies
Vanessa cardui
Life Cycle of the Painted Lady Butterfly
Caring for your Painted Lady Caterpillers
Our butterfly kits will include five caterpillars each in their own small container with a plastic lid. The paper towel will help to control humidity and also serve as support for the larva to hang from when it forms its chrysalis. The container also contains enough food for the larvae to complete their development into pupae. The container should be kept at room temperature and out of direct sunlight. We suggest you choose and area where you can easily watch the development process. Be careful not to shake the container and try to move it as little as possible.
The caterpillars will grow quite rapidly - and as they do they will excrete waste called "frass" which looks like brown balls. We recommend to remove the frass by gently brushing it out with a soft paintbrush about once a week - although some people leave do not worry about removing the grass. The caterpillars might also begin to produce silky strands that will provide shelter and help the caterpillar to move around the container.
Periodically, the caterpillars may appear lifeless during the growing period. This is normal and usually indicates that the caterpillar will be molting shortly.
Often, shortly before forming a chrysalis, the caterpillar may excrete a red coloured frass ball.
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Pupation (Forming a Chrysalis)
When the caterpillar is full grown, it will stop feeding and crawl to the top of the cup. The pupa will then hang down headfirst from the lid of the cup (or paper towel if you are using it) - often resembling the letter "J". Be very careful not to disturb the caterpillar during this process, as the pupa is very fragile while it transforms into a chrysalis.
It is now time to setup the flight cage and line the bottom of it with some paper towel. After allowing the chrysalis to harden for at least 24 hours, carefully remove the lid and and paper towel - and tape or pin the paper towel (or lid of the cup if there is no paper towel) to the side of the flight cage included with the kit. Attach so the chrysalis are 4-6" from the bottom of the flight cage. If using tape - choose a strong tape such as masking tape or duct tape.
If any of the chrysalides have fallen from the lid of their container, careful remove them, brush them off with a soft paintbrush. Then attach the small pointed tip of the chrysalis to a piece of string - and tie it to the side of the flight cage. Be careful not to puncture or squeeze the chrysalis during this process.
​We recommend that you lightly mist the chrysalides a few times a day to keep them from drying out, particularly if the humidity in the environment is less than 40%.
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The Butterflies Emerge
The pupa stage will last between eight and ten days. At this time, the butterfly will crack open the chrysalis and emerge. Immediately after they crawl out of their chrysalis, they will spend a period of time pumping their wings before they are ready to fly. During this process, it is common for the butterfly to excrete meconium - a red-coloured liquid that contains the metabolic waste product from the caterpillars transformation into a butterfly.
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In the wild, ​butterflies use their proboscis to suck the sweet nectar out of flowers. In captivity, they can be fed a solution made from 5 tablespoons of sugar mixed with 1 cup of water. Saturate a cotton ball or piece of paper towel in the liquid and place it on the floor of the cage. You can also offer it to them by dipping a q-tip in the solution and holding it up in front of them. Often the butterflies prefer the mixture made from brown sugar - although they will usually accept a solution of white sugar as well. A small amount of bee pollen can be added to the mixture - but is not necessary. You can also offer the butterflies slices of overripe fruit including oranges, strawberries or watermelon. They also like ripe banana mashed up with a little bit of water.
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We recommend lightly misting the enclosure once or twice a day. Butterflies can be kept in the flight cage for the entirety of their short two to four week adult lifespan.
During their life, painted lady butterflies will undergo complete metamorphosis. About three to five days after the tiny teal eggs are laid, the little gray caterpillar (also called the larvae) emerges and immediately begins to feed. Over the next two or three weeks the caterpillar will grow to about four centimetres long.
During this time, the larvae will molt its skin in order to accommodate the growth. Molting is the process that all arthropods (insects, arachnids and crustaceans) go through in order to shed the old exoskeleton while expanding and hardening the new one which has been growing underneath. In most cases the caterpillar will do this five times during its life. In the final molt, a pale brown chrysalis (also called a pupa) is formed.
The chrysalis displays little movement and functions like a shell to protect the organism for about 10 days as it develops into the mature butterfly. The process of emerging from the chrysalis is very similar to the process the larvae underwent when it hatched from its egg, During the process the butterfly will slowly emerge from a crack in the chrysalis. When it is free from its chrysalis, the butterfly will begin to pump up its wings. This forces fluid from its abdomen out into the veins of the wings, which will inflate them to their proper size and shape. A few short hours later, the butterfly is ready to fly. Adult butterflies only live for about 2–4 weeks.
Painted Lady Timeline
Egg Stage - (about five days from being laid until they hatch)
Larvae Stage (caterpillar) - about two weeks
Pupae Stage (chrysalis) - about 7-10 days
Adult Butterfly Lifespan - about three weeks