caterpillar mortality

[everton]

I am not having luck with space set up. I put the other 3 in my usual container that I raise monarchs in and they are fine but only have 1 left in space set up.

[Passion4Pollinators]

Does your habitat have small holes for air?

[everton]

It does now. I really don't think that was the problem though because there is a gap around the edge where the top snaps on.

[Passion4Pollinators]

Good Luck with the rest of them.....

[nelsondr]

I am going to agree! I ordered and successfully reared almost 80 larvae from Monarch Watch this August/September. I lost some in the later stages of development, but only 3 or 4 (mostly due to handling by students, I think).

I, too, have lost two caterpillars in my space set up. One was early on, even before 4th instar stage. The other was just after 4th instar stage.

We wonder if it has anything to do with the artificial diet? It's our only guess so far, as that is a significant difference from those we raised earlier. Another thought is the plastic container. It was cleaned and rinsed thoroughly and seems to have plenty of air. It's a good lesson for students (experiments don't always go as planned, etc.), but it makes me nervous!

I hope the 'pillars on the ISS made it okay!

[Passion4Pollinators]

This will be interesting to see if any others have similar problems as this. My 6 cats are doing fine and gobbling away on their food. Keep us posted on how the others do, I'll keep my fingers crossed you don't lose anymore. It's interesting watching them eat this food after being use to watching them munch milkweed!

[texas butterfly]

We got 6 cats on Friday.

One cat died on Sunday.

A 2nd cat died due to an accident with the tape in habitat. He got stuck there and died.

The remaining 4 seem to be growing well.

It would be good for them to collect stats on how many caterpillars successfully made it to adults.

Especially if they continue to market the artificial diet for other experiments.

I can see how the artificial diet would benefit teachers in classrooms. They just open a feeding container and basically could leave cats alone and spend more time doing other things than running around collecting milkweed.

[everton]

So sorry about the tape incident.
I really think it has to do with the vertical set up.
I put three in my usual set up which is a round domed container with the food just sitting on the floor and they are thriving.
I definitely put too much food out at first and am worried that I'll have enough.

[Passion4Pollinators]

I don't like the tape now on the habitats... that is what I am using right now. I am having troubles finding a rubber band big enough but I just had a idea, the elastic head bands that look like big rubber bands I think would work great, going out to get a couple. Thank you both for sharing so we can all try different things that work! A couple of my caterpillars like to waddle up around the edges and I had one escape... thank goodness it wasn't near the tape!

[everton]

Okay so the space set up is doing okay with my one remaining caterpillar. Although today the caterpillar has been on the top all day. The 3 in my own container have been crawling around a lot also, but the one in the space set up has been in one spot on the sandpaper that I glued there as per the directions. I hope it finishes shedding and finds its way back to the food.

[Don Spearance]

All six cats alive and doing well. Very weird raising monarchs again when the night temps are in the 20's!!

[Passion4Pollinators]

Don... I hear you! It's rather strange also watching the cats eat this food. Never seen them eat anything but all them milkweed leaves before, this is very interesting all the way around!

[everton]

Wow! Finally viewed photos of cats on ISS. Ours are runts compared to those. When they came I was surprised how small they were. We have a way to go to catch up to those.
The one lone guy in the space set up came down off the ceiling for food finally.
With leaves it's easier to see howmuch they are eating. It doesn't seem like any of this food ever disappears, but the cats are growing so I know they are eating and there is also frass as evidence.

[Passion4Pollinators]

Yes, our cats arrived tiny but I think somebody slipped some miracle grow in mines lunch LOL today they have gotten so much BIGGER!! This is too much fun!

[texas butterfly]

I was surprised with how small our cats were also when they were delivered.

But, they are growing much bigger now.

I agree also, it doesn't seem like much food is being eaten.

In a separate habitat, I found 4 cats in my own garden. One has already PUPA'd. The other 3 are still tiny cats but are growing on my cut milkweed.

Don't know if the space cats are going to PUPA before they break for Thanksgiving, but hopefully if not my supplemental cats will allow them to see of the processes after the break.

Also, found a different larva and that is appearing to eat the aphids. So, put this larva in a separate container and we are feeding it aphids. Also very neat experiment. Think this is a fly larva. We are keeping it separate from cats. The larva almost seems like a GLOB just moving around in search of more aphids.

[everton]

Wow! the little guys (or gals) seemed to really grow the last day or so. I don't think they will be pupa by next Thurs. though.

[cgrendy3]

We're having some unexpected results with our cats too. I received the cats on Friday--the 13th--ugh... just realized the superstition of that date! lol... and, had the three largest cats set up in our 'space container' and in my son's 3rd grade classroom on Tuesday--the 17th. The other three I kept at home in my usual rearing area--although I did set up a container similar to the 'space container,' but I'm keeping the food in the fridge and just smashing a dollop against the back of the container--no little individual boxes or anything--and cleaning the frass and 'older' food out daily.

First, my son's teacher came in to her room last Friday--the 20th--to a container holding ONLY TWO cats??? No one knows how the heck one escaped, and it couldn't be found, but it's gone just the same!! The air vents in the container are entirely too small for the cats to crawl through... so, my thought is that some curious little fingers may have prodded the container overnight But, these things happen! Sigh.

Then, just this morning--the 24th--the teacher finds a cat lying motionless on the bottom of the container! ARGH! So, I had my son bring the container home so we could 'babysit' the last cat over the holiday break. He also brought the dead cat home. It looks kinda deflated--but not diseased--so I think the diet was just not working for our school cats. Maybe the temperature or lighting in the room fluctuated too much?

At any rate, I put the remaining school cat in with the other three cats I kept at home and he started devouring the diet! So, I think that for us anyway, the preloaded food containers just didn't work to keep the diet fresh. The cats I have at home are thriving--although one is fairly small compared to the others--I think he's just a couple of days younger maybe? I hesitated to put the lone school cat in with the healthy other cats at first, but as someone else mentioned in another post, I think this experiment is more about getting the cats through their life cycle for the kids to witness the thrilling emergence, than about sticking to protocol. The kids really want to see those wings flapping!!

So, at last count, we are down to three cats ready to pupate, and one a couple of days behind. The school container was probably compromised... so we'll just stick with the home-method that's working for now. I plan on separating the cats so we'll have two pupas for school and two for home if we get that far! And, the 'missing' cat could always end up pupating somewhere in the classroom! (although i doubt it). But, I have had about 3-4 cats do this over the years in my kitchen! They can be soooo sneaky!

Good luck all!!

[everton]

Wanted to update everyone on our progress. It is slow but still changing. We lost all three caterpillars in the space set up. The three in my container are all chrysalises. The first one( pupated on Nov. 29th)is very dark and should emerge at any time. The second(pupated Nov. 30) is turning darker and the third(pupated Dec. 1) is still more green. I am sure they are so slow because of heat and light. I wasn't very consistant with this. Will post when the adults emerge.

[Jim]

Thanks for the follow-up!

We will be sending out a survey for all participants to complete online over the next month or so and we post the results for everyone to see.

Temperature has definitely played a significant role in the development of the monarchs here on Earth - many classrooms get relatively cold overnight and on weekends.

Stay tuned!

[texas butterfly]

As of Friday, we still have one cat left.
The other 5 died.
Most of the food is gone and this cat does not look well, but we are hoping.

I had 3 caterpillars from my backyard garden and those 3 cats did well on Tropical Milkweed. The cats were probably 4th or 5th instars when I brought them in. They were in the same classroom but different habitat as the space cats. One is an adult butterfly, the other two are PUPAs and we are waiting for them to eclose as adult butterflies.

Our adult butterfly is in a nice habitat and is feeding on nectar(gatorade) and looks good, but he is also eager to take flight outside. We are waiting for a good weather day for release, but so far weather has been too cold or too wet. We had the surprise snow 8 days ago.

The students are enjoying this project even though space cats are not doing well. I was fortunate to supplement with a backup plan.

[nelsondr]

We officially lost all of our caterpillars, with none making it to the chrysalis stage. Three dies very early on. Then I had the food issue (or lack thereof). When I put some green pods in the three remaining cats seems to devour it. But they eventually stopped eating and died. We've been talking about what factors, other than food which likely played at least some part, may have impacted their lack of development. It has been a good experiment/experience regardless. We've enjoyed watching the cats on the ISS, learning about scientific method in the real world, and checking in/discussing how our hypothesis compared to the actual results as the ISS cats went throught their phases.

Thanks again, Monarch Watch, for this wonderful opportunity!

[everton]

Houston we have adults! We have three alive female monarchs. They emerged Dec.14, 15, and 17th. They are eating sugar water and oraange gatorade. We have had them out in the classroom and they fly around landing on students and head toward the window. Sooo fun!! Thank you so much for this opportunity.

[texas butterfly]

All 6 of our space cats died. :>(

The good news is the students still enjoyed the Monarchs in Watch activity and were introduced to both Monarchs and space.

All 3 of our Texas (my backyard cats) made it to Adult stage and were released into the wild.

We had 1 boy and 2 girls.

So, overall it was a successfuly project, just wish our Kansas cats had done better. The last space cat kept eating but not growing. Most of the space food was gone.

t. butterfly

[everton]

I can't believe it but all three of our butterflies are still alive. They are in a tower I made out of netting and embroidery hoops. I feed them sugar water, pineapple(fresh), and gatorade. They seem to prefer the pineapple and the sugar water. They are now 15 - 18 days old. I carried them back and forth to school over the first weekend. Then I brought them home for Christmas vacation. Planned to be away from home for three days. Set the house thermometer to 60 and left fruit in the bottom of the tower. Came home to three alive butterflies. I was really surprised. They are still moving around and eating. One has tattered wings, but still finds the food and eats. Wish we had males (only have 3 females) so we could have another generation. I hope they make it 3 more days so I can take them back to school.