[lhs]

Hi all,

This may seem like very silly question but new to all this (!)….Have 4 swan plants and about 9 caterpillars and one chrysalis.  One of my caterpillars has started to curl up in the chrysalis position on a leaf.  The potential problem I can see is that the other caterpillars might eat that leaf and therefore it will fall off leaf.  So should I move it? And if so how?

Thanks heaps for your help

Lisa

[Jacqui]

Hello Lisa

There is a ton of references in here about moving pupae (chrysalises). Usually the other caterpillars don’t eat the leaf that a chrysalis is on. Or sometimes they leave enough of the leaf so that the J is still suspended.

You could wait until the J is a chrysalis, and then take the whole leaf off the plant and use adhesive tape to attach it to something that they won’t eat. You can mist the silk around the cremaster and then pull the chrysalis and silk away off the leaf – saving valuable food.

Some of us don’t even bother to hang up the pupae again – butterflies emerge from them just fine SO LONG AS they are placed next to something perpendicular that they can immediately climb up as the butterfly emerges. I put my fallen chrysalises into a net box which sits on the window sill. They can then emerge when they’re ready and when the wings are dry, they fly out the window.

Explore all these messages – use the hot tag next to this on “chrysalis” and “pupa” and you will get some other ideas. And some other people might add to this thread too.

[Author]

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