The Painted Lady Butterfly is a very popular butterfly. It is easy to care for and it is readily available for you to raise at home. You can buy one of the butterfly garden kits and then order your painted lady caterpillars and in a matter of a couple of weeks your painted ladies will hatch.

This is exactly what I did. I bought one of the butterfly kits in a toy store and then sent away for my caterpillars. It was a fun learning experience.

Butterflies - How to make a butterfly box - the life cycle of the butterfly - About the Painted Lady Butterfly

Here is a picture of one of the butterflies that I hatched.

The life cycle of the Painted Lady Butterfly:

There are four steps in the life cycle and the whole cycle takes about 21 Days to complete.

• Egg Stage - It all starts out with an egg and this stage will last a couple of weeks unless the egg is laid close to winter. If so it goes into a dormant stage for the winter and hatches in the spring. The eggs of the painted lady are very small and about the size of a pin head!
• The larva stage - This is the caterpillar stage.In this stage the caterpillar spends most of its time eating and in search of food which is typically made up of plant leaves. After a period of time as a caterpillar it stops eating and finds a good spot, usually under a leaf, to attach itself and turn into a pupu (chrysalid) The length of time they stay in this stage will vary but it is often between 7 - 10 days.
• The Pupa Stage - This is the cyrysalis stage where the caterpillar transforms itself into a butterfly. This stage usually lasts 7 - 10 days. After this time it will emerge from the chrysalid as a butterfly.
• The Butterfly stage - This is the adult stage of the insect and during this stage they will feed on plant nectar and with some species on flower pollen. Depending on the species they can live between 1 month and a full year. They will mate and lay eggs thus continuing the cycle. The Painted Lady adult butterfly lives about 2 weeks.

Butterfly Resources

From Caterpillar to Butterfly (Let's-Read-and-Find-Out Science, Stage 1)

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