Vanessa cardui (Painted lady)

Malva sylvestris (Common mallow)

Last update: 13 March 2020


Common

LOCATION:
SAMPLE:
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I’ve put the Painted lady (Vanessa cardui) in a rearing setup in house. The setup consisted of a seedling Common mallow (Malva sylvestris) from the garden. As the larva grew the plant was more and more stripped of it’s leaves so in the end I fed fresh leaves that were hung in the plant using  needles covered with cork.   

Unfortunately when looking at the photographs it turned out I had missed the second instar, and rearing started with the third instar. Based on the timestamps on all photographs I think what happend is that I’ve collected a different larva than the one photographed in the garden. There were two eggs relatively near each other in the original plant but I had not seen the second larva before.

Painted lady (Vanessa cardui), rearing setup with 3rd instar on Common mallow (Malva sylvestris)
Painted lady (Vanessa cardui), rearing setup with 3rd instar on Common mallow (Malva sylvestris)

3rd INSTAR

Painted lady (Vanessa cardui), 3rd instar on Common mallow (Malva sylvestris)
Painted lady (Vanessa cardui), 3rd instar on Common mallow (Malva sylvestris)
Painted lady (Vanessa cardui), 3rd instar on Common mallow (Malva sylvestris)
Painted lady (Vanessa cardui), 3rd instar on Common mallow (Malva sylvestris)
Painted lady (Vanessa cardui), 3rd instar on Common mallow (Malva sylvestris)
Painted lady (Vanessa cardui), 3rd instar on Common mallow (Malva sylvestris)

4th INSTAR

Painted lady (Vanessa cardui), 4th instar on Common mallow (Malva sylvestris)
Painted lady (Vanessa cardui), 4th instar on Common mallow (Malva sylvestris)

5th INSTAR

Painted lady (Vanessa cardui), 5th instar on Common mallow (Malva sylvestris)
Painted lady (Vanessa cardui), 5th instar on Common mallow (Malva sylvestris)

PREPUPA

Painted lady (Vanessa cardui), prepupa
Painted lady (Vanessa cardui), prepupa

PUPA

Painted lady (Vanessa cardui), pupa (±1 hour old)
Painted lady (Vanessa cardui), pupa (3 days old)

ADULT

In the end the butterfly emerged. The rise to that occasion was a bit dumb, because I had looked inside the rearing cage and the pupa looked similar to the day before. Then I killed some time gaming but after an hour or something I heared some rustling. When I looked inside the cage there was the butterfly… it had hatched while I was gaming AAARGH 😤!!!

Painted lady (Vanessa cardui), adult (9 days after pupation)
Painted lady (Vanessa cardui), adult (2 hours old)
Painted lady (Vanessa cardui), adult (2 hours old)

Literature

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