Strange Places for Pupa to Pupate

[Mona Miller]

Pupa on tomato cage wire. Milkweed less than 2 feet away.


Pupa on hand rail of front porch. Milkweed less than 3 ft. away.

[windrider]

One of my cat's took off and I couldn't find it. Then one day my grandson, who likes to climb the lolly columns in our basement, felt something and said "what's this?"



I kept thinking of your comments - like the chrysalis on your coffee pot

[Mona Miller]

I ended up taking the two I found down. If I can find them, then the predators can, too. I left one on the siding of my house last year and was so disappointed when it was eaten for dinner by someone.

I also was worried about someone using the hand rail and squishing the pupa. I found it by going down my front steps and using the hand rail. I was so glad I didn't squish it.

[applestar]

Yesterday late morning, when I investigated a persistent rustling noise coming from the corner of the room, I found a smallish male Monarch fluttering in an open plastic bag of toys. I checked the butterfly cage but all the untagged butterflies that eclosed the day before were still in there. It must have been an escaped cat -- I'm not counting cats so I didn't know. I looked all around, even took out all the toys out of the bag, but didn't find the empty chrysalis. WHO knows where it had pupated.

[applestar]

Let me add to this photo gallery
One silly caterpillar pupated inside the Toilet paper tube placed under the paper towels lining the cage to create a slight slope....

[Mona Miller]

Ooops, it doesn't look like it has enough room to inflate its wings. But, it is the perfect size and a protect place for a caterpillar to pupate.

[skates4marty]

Love this thread!

[windrider]

When I was doing some fall cleanup work around the house, I happened to find the remains of a chrysalis on the siding of my house by the electric meter.

Hope the guy is fairing well.

[branduin]

I have a couple odd ones from 2008 from before I raised any indoors. 2008 was actually my best year though as I tracked 38 successful butterflies (plus a few not so successful) around my garden that summer.

One brave caterpillar climbed right up my shepherd's hook and formed its chrysalis. I was so scared that a bird would get it and I didn't know anything about moving them or raising them indoors at the time so I just left it and watch and nothing ever bugged it!



This other one formed its chrysalis on the bottom of the downspout! (and yes, I cleared away the spiderwebs after taking the picture)

[Mona Miller]

So I hope you know now that you can easily take down hardened chrysalis by spraying them with water and then taking a stick pin and pulling the silk. I often take the stick pin and push it through the silk above the cremaster (black stem) and then weave that into a net container with the stick pin pointed out.

[applestar]

I know this is an old thread, and there might be a new one going, but I remembered posting in this one so.... I'll just add to this thread:

We have a cute desktop fan that we use every day to move the air to supplement the a/c when the afternoon sun heats up this room. Today was overcast so we weren't feeling the heat until just a little while ago.

This is what I found when I went to turn the fan on


Yep. This is a newly eclosed Monarch butterfly INSIDE the fan, hanging from the shell of a chrysalis it had attached to the inside roof of the fan box.

We keep the Monarch rearing containers on this table, and we did lose a 5th instar caterpillar a week or so ago.... Did I say we use this fan EVERY DAY?

We've unplugged the fan so there wont be any accidents, and tomorrow, we will be disassembling the fan.

[Mona Miller]

Great! So glad that this one was lucky.