other photo of the pupa

Hi michaela,

Sadly I think your monarch has a bacterial infection. This has happened to me a couple of times and they butterfly never emerges. I would seperate it and get it into the freezer. That is what I was too to do so to humanely out down the sick cats or butterflies :(. Sorry about the chryslid.

Erika

Hi Erika, thank you for sharing your feedback with me. This was one I brought inside that was almost ready to pupate when I found it. I had it in with 2 other cats and I put him in with my other chrysalis that I raised from eggs once he pupated. Do you think my other ones will get the Bacterial Infection?

As much as I feel the need to save the ones outside I think I am only going to bring in eggs, there's just so much they can get out there and infect the rest of them.

Off to take him to the freezer. :(

I think the others should be ok. When I ran into this problem, I just seperated the infected one and the other made a sucessful enclosure! I bring in everyone, but I have tons of little jars going at the same time. I leave all cats I find in the same general area together, so as they are all similar sizes and habitat. We have great amounts of wasp mortality and parasitic losses so I bring everyone in. I often have lots of frozen cats that have become infected when I wait too long to get them inside :(. Do bleach the infected cage just to sterilize. Good luck with the test of the survivors

So far no signs of any diseases on any other pupas. I have 5 healthy ones at the moment! I found more caterpillars last night and brought them in. I have my hands full now.