The Lifecycle Of A Painted Lady

Last Christmas (2010) Little A received a butterfly garden and ladybug land kit. With life's craziness managing to get in the way at every turn, we never ended up ordering the caterpillars or ladybug larvae. Little A asked and asked and finally, this April, Grandma sent away for the insects. It seems that our order got lost in the mail somewhere along the way, but the company was kind enough to replace the lost order and in early May, we received 5 caterpillars and 11 ladybug larvae.

Here are the five caterpillars in the food jar. At this point they are probably about a week into the process, but when they first arrived they were less than half an inch long and about as thick as a piece of spaghetti.


The first caterpillar has changed into a chrysalid and is hanging from a thin paper lid on the top of the cup! The other four still have no interest and continue to eat and eat and grow and grow.

All five caterpillars have changed to chrysalids and we have moved them from the food cup to the butterfly habitat where they will emerge as painted lady butterflies.

And now, all five butterflies have emerged and we are releasing the last two. We released three in the garden at home, and two in the forest at Hendy Woods. The butterflies didn't want to leave. I guess they liked us!

If you've never watched this process before, I HIGHLY recommend it! It's quite possible that I was more fascinated by it all than either of the kids! Want to get your own Butterfly Garden or Ladybug Land? Check them out here!