Painted Ladies

Linda & Jeff Ives skytuc at mindspring.com
Sat May 5 00:18:15 EDT 2007


One of the first grade teachers in the school I work at gave me several (10-15) Painted Lady caterpillars this afternoon.  They are a part of the science curriculum and apparently the company they order from sends "extras" to make up for those that die in transit. However, they don't send a rearing cup or artificial food for the extras and the teacher didn't know what to do with them. She knew they needed proper host plants, so she contacted me.

I know that Painted Ladies have several host plants, but the only plants I can easily recognize are plantain and nettle.  I haven't seen any sprouted in my yard and I usually have plenty of both.  Another host plant is the mallow and hollyhock family.  Are they growing and identifiable yet?

I'd appreciate any advice I can get as what to do with these caterpillars.  I have a meadow near me, but feel I should identify a host plant nearby before letting them go.

I saw 2 spring azures and 1 mourning cloak this week in Marlborough and Colchester. And a tiger swallowtail this morning in Marlborough.
Linda
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mailman.yale.edu/mailman/private/ctleps-l/attachments/20070505/a8e0636a/attachment.html 


More information about the Ctleps-l mailing list