Keeping and breeding butterflies

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29.01.2006 14:02, Evgeny A

The problem is as follows. Pupae that are in natural conditions (on the balcony in a city apartment) do not enter diapause: in autumn, they show body contours, as if a butterfly is about to come out. If left in the heat, they slowly develop, but usually die (although once they turned out to be a normal butterfly). The caterpillars were taken in the Moscow region and the Orenburg region, so they should not be too warm on the balcony in September.
What should I do with them to prevent this phenomenon?

And you find out how many generations a year there are in the butterflies that you keep.
Some butterflies can be found even in late September.
You can try 4 days after pupation, put the pupae "in a box with cotton wool" on the bottom shelf of the refrigerator. And wait until the first frost.

31.01.2006 12:38, Helene

.........Some butterflies can be found even in late September.

Well, the language is itching to be sarcastic, but in a professional topic I will refrain... I'll just say that I'm not a youngster, but a matronly entomologist, except that I haven't settled down yet

You can try 4 days after pupation, put the pupae "in a box with cotton wool" on the bottom shelf of the refrigerator. And wait until the first frost.

This also occurred to me, but simple logic stopped me: the caterpillars were not brought from the North, they are still warm in nature, just like in our country... An explanation for the oddities seems to have been found further in the topic: the contours of the wings on the pupa are normal, which means that the butterfly overwinters in the stage of abstract imago. You just need to put it on for the winter in this form.

21.02.2006 13:51, Helene

I report on the caterpillars of the Thai cocoonworm....

Alas, they died. Yesterday I buried the last user posted image

Most offensive thing in spirtyashka, that they died out of stupidity: they developed perfectly on Chinese salad, and the second wave of Moscow frosts ruined them.
I simply underestimated their thermophilic nature and did not take any measures when the temperature in the room dropped from +23-24 to +19-20. And they had enough: they caught a cold. This was expressed in the fact that they became sluggish, and they had, sorry, constipation. By raising the temperature to +26 (I moved the cage to the battery), it seems that I managed to fix the matter, but when it came time to shed, none of them could... Hurtful

This post was edited by Helene - 02/21/2006 13: 53

Likes: 1

03.05.2006 11:41, Dracus

And the saucer with water (or cotton wool, as a last resort, if the hatching takes place in the bank), of course, should be inside the aquarium at a certain distance from the maril / branch for hanging, so that the butterfly does not accidentally fall into the water. The water itself is needed to create the appropriate humidity. The aquarium / jar should be half-covered with something (preferably a piece of glass). If they are not closed, it will be as dry as without water, and if they are completely closed, there may be waterlogging, how it will affect is unknown. Humidity should be as high as in the morning in the places where the butterfly lives (it is known that at least many daytime butterflies hatch in the morning).