Oh, my - doesn't look good, Weed! Can you isolate them to see what happens? They may have been either parasitized or have been infected with a virus.

I've had a few lately that suffered from "melt", but they died before they pupated.

Susan

weed30, I agree that the shiny spot on the BST pupa looks odd and anything odd worries me that something has gone wrong, but I have no idea what that could have been caused by.

And I don't know how to tell whether a pupa harbors a wasp; I've seen plenty of photos of caterpillars which visibly had ... odd protrusions that others here have said were evidence of wasps. I don't know, however, whether a healthy-seeming caterpillar can appear to pupate well, but actually be harboring a wasp.

The thing I wanted to comment on, however, is that in my experience here in St. Louis, BSTs that pupate this late in the season often overwinter before emerging. I generally tape the stick with the pupa up in a sort of screened in porch I have, where the temperature is quite similar to the outdoors, and come out one late spring morning to a beautiful butterfly. (Pupa that have formed as early as July here have emerged as late as April or May.)

So - warn your friend that if the butterfly doesn't emerge in the next 2 weeks or so, that does NOT mean it is not alive; it may just be preparing to overwinter.

Thanks for the responses. I will move the odd looking pupa to another area. I'm not sure what the other one looks like, it had not pupated when I gave it to my friend. I guess I need to show her the photo to see if hers looks like that.

Oh, I hope these don't overwinter! I had some that pupated in September that did, which I expected. I was hoping these wouldn't, so both of my friends could enjoy them this season.