Darn, it happened again.

[dzyg]

This is getting depressing! I had another butterfly emerge this morning with none of the toe hooks for hanging on. It managed to stay up until its wings were elongated but they were not dry when it fell. It cannot hold on to anything. I cannot hold it all day so I put it in the fridge, then I will put it in the freezer for permanent sleep. This is the second one in two days. I have had 64 normal butterflies that I have released so far and now this starts happening. They were both females too! The one from yesterday seems to be able to fly and it has its back toe hooks anyway so I will see if I can let it go today when it warms up, sorry I am not sure what the things on the toes are called. Anyone else have problems like this? I have ten more crysallis and I am scared I will loose more.

[Teresa]

To me, this is very strange. I've never had this happen and i've been doing this for 4 years. Maybe i'll start looking at them closer if I find one that has fallen.

[dzyg]

Well I had four crysallis ready to hatch this morning and I was actually scared for the butterflies to emerge. One of them was a smaller crysallis where the cat formed the crysallis early, one was midsized and two were normal large crysallis. (The deformed one yesterday was a small crysallis too) First one out, omg, another one. This one when it flopped out was hanging from the crysallis only by its probiscus. It had no toes on any of its feet and it barely even had any antaneas. I held it by it legs for awhile but it was pretty useless, there was no way this butterfly would survive. This is just making me sick. It is one thing for the crysallis to go bad but to see a butterfly emerge and it isn't formed right is heartbreaking. Thank God the other three butterflies came out normal, they have all their parts and seem fine. One of these three is a little smaller but not like the first one that hatched today. I have one more smaller crysallis but on observing it just a bit ago, I think it may have one of those fly larva in it. It has a brown spot on it. I have five other normal looking crysallis left, I am praying these all hatch normally.

Has anyone else seen anything like this?? I am thinking it must be some genetic defect?? I did let the first one go, it seemed to fly ok even though the antanea were not totally formed and the toes weren't quite right. But the second two, there was no way, I put them two to sleep.

[SWAMPMILKWEED]

Aren't they called, "tarsus?" That is strange.

[Megathymus ursus]

Yes, they are called tarsi (singular tarsus).

This could be a random mutation, or a pathogenic process. Do you know what your local OE levels are like?