Painted lady caterpillar?

cornish-thyme · #1 (**permalink**) 16-07-2009, 10:45 PM

Took this last week, can anyone confirm that i've correctly identified it? also, how long do they remain as a chrysalis as i'm wondering if its worth trying to find the thistle again to take another picture?
thank you

ron1863 · #2 (**permalink**) 16-07-2009, 11:05 PM

It could be a Comma caterpillar, I think the Painted Lady caterpillar has yellowish spines but not too sure. Someone will ID it shortly though.

charlieb · #3 (**permalink**) 17-07-2009, 07:47 AM

Yeah, Painted Lady - they're quite variable (and eat thistles!).

I'm not sure on the habits of Painted Lady larvae, but they may wander some distance from the foodplant to pupate (which takes between a week and 10 days I think).

cornish-thyme · #4 (**permalink**) 18-07-2009, 10:09 AM

Thank you for the confirmation of id and the info. With luck i should start to see newly emerged painted lady butterflies soon as i've been noticing the caterpillars for a couple of weeks now - i was hoping that they'd save me some work as i'm trying to limit the spread of the thistles and was going to cut them down before they seed (can't do before that as the bees etc love them) but no such luck as there seems to be a limit to how many thistles the caterpillars can eat!!