We have a butterfly ! How long do they live ?

[fakeblonde]

Ds 1 brought us a caterpillar a couple of weeks ago, so we dutifully put in a jam jar with some cabbage.I wasn`t sure what was going on but just popped home for dinner and we have a beautiful white butterfly.
He will be so pleased but will it live in the jar ok until he gets home ?
I dont want to kill it after all this time.
Should we just let him go later ?

have you got an ice cream tub you could put it in?

dont they live one day?

4 days

I'm glad to hear they don't live long, I used to put them in jars as a child and they always went furry after a couple of days. Salves my conscience to now hear that they wouldn't have lived much longer than a couple of days anyway.

Gosh all that faffing for weeks on end and just for 1-4 days

Mrs Spoon this went furry after a couple of days-and after a couple of weeks out came this gorgeous butterfly.Anyone read the very hungry caterpillar-its my ds`s fav book so he will be in awe .

Could it be a Cabbage White butterfly then?

pictures of cabbage white

According to this they live for 2 weeks.

IIRC lifespan of the adult phase varies with species - some can even overwinter for example.

Why not make a big deal of setting it free in the park or garden? I'm sure it will live longer free and you get a great lesson for your lo about respecting wild life.

Ever after, when you see a white butterfly, you could say "Look, it's Flutter Butter!"

Yes it does depend on the sort of butterfly anything from a few days to several months, e.g. peacock butterflies will hibernate through the winter. Butterflies need access to sunshine and flowers to get nectar to feed so if kept inside for long it will die, but I would think it would be fine kept until your son gets back from school, then just release it in your garden!

fakeblonde, mine were caught at the butterfly stage, then went furry! Must have been amazing to watch the transformation. As a child I did successfully hatch ladybirds, found a stick with eggs on (don't know how I knew they were ladybird eggs, perhaps just a good guess) and they hatched into hundreds of little ladybirds then built them a little 'farm' in the garden and they were quite happy there for a while.

The moral of my story is encourage him to set it free because it will go mouldy.

Ds let Eric go and he flew full circle around the garden and landed on our butterfly bush !!!!!!! x

there was a beautiful butterfly in our bedroom for a couple of days last summer. I eventually caught him and let him out of the window only to watch him fly down to the road and promptly get run over.
I was gutted!

Oh cupcakes thats soo sad.

Good news about Eric, I'm sure he'll be very happy in the butterfly bush.

YAY!

Oh Cupcakes,

When I was a little girl we were on the pier and a fisherman had either accidentally caught or was using a baby octopus as bait. Either way, I got very upset and the poor guy gave it to me to shut me up.

I made a big to do of freeing poor little octopus by dropping him over the side of the pier, maybe 50 feet to the water below, where he went splat into a million little octopus pieces.

My father still tells this story!