painted lady butterflies

We had a fantastic time raising Painted Lady Butterflies. It was wonderful to observe them as they progressed through their life cycle from caterpillar or larva, chrysalis or pupa, to adult. The students enjoyed watching the butterflies emerge from their chrysalides with wet, crumbled wings. They continue to observe at various times throughout the next few hours as they hung from the empty chrysalides to dry their wings, pump blood into them, and finally fly. We put several Zinnias in the cage, which is one of the host plants of the Painted Lady Butterfly. We also put some cut up oranges, which they loved. The children watched the butterflies as they used their proboscis to sip nectar from the flowers or juice from the oranges. We were thrilled to find that our butterflies laid eggs on the leaves of our plants.