Open Terrariums - Caterpillar Setups - Raising Butterflies--How to find and care for butterfly eggs and caterpillars

Caterpillar Setups > Open Terrariums

The biggest enemy to butterfly caterpillars is their own waste or frass. It is important to provide sufficient airflow in open terrariums or open buckets to help caterpillar frass dry. It's also important to remove frass regularly. The advantage of terrariums over buckets is that it is easier to watch the caterpillars feed in a terrarium.

In a setup like this, it is important to place host plant cuttings in bottled of water, cork cuttings with facial tissue and place larvae on the host. Clean out frass regularly and replace host every five days or so.

Remember to keep open terrariums indoors and away from direct sunlight unless you are using potted plants with plenty of ventilation.

Open Terrarium technique for indra swallowtails

This photo shows indra swallowtails on bouquets of parsley (Cymopterus terebinthinus) feeding in an open terrarium. It's important that these terrariums have a screen lid; so that caterpillar frass can dry. It's also critical to replace hostplant cuttings every 2-7 days depending upon the variety of your parsley. My paper on Papilio indra goes into much more detail on the finding and caring for their larvae.
Open Terrarium Technique for indra swallowtails II

Here is a close-up photo of the bouquets of Cymopterus terebinthinus.
Open Terrarium Technique for indra swallowtails III

Closer photo still of hostplant cuttings of Cymopterus terebinthinus placed in water bottles for the open terrarium technique.
Open Terrarium Colias meadi

Here is Nicky Davis' setup for raising caterpillars of the mead's sulfur (Colias meadi.) Notice that she has the larvae exposed to 24 hours of light to help coax the larvae to go through to pupae without diapausing as half-grown larvae. Nicky (with the coaching of Jack Harry) did very well with these larvae.
Double Decker Open Terrarium

Some caterpillars feed on very tall host. Here is a photo of two terrariums fastened together. One could also simply buy a 20 gallon terrarium to get the same effect. This setup has caterpillars of the southwestern orangetip (Anthocharis thoosa thoosa.)
Double Decker Open Terrariums

Here is the double decker terrarium setup for Papilio indra.
Open Terrarium with Base

This is an interesting derivative of the Open Terrarium technique. Because last instar indra swallowtail caterpillars can wander off the plant to rest, this setup makes it much easier for them to return to the plant to feed.

There are holes drilled in the base of this setup where the neck of the water bottles enter allowing for the stalks of the host to be right at the bottom of the cage allowing for easy exit and return for wary indra caterpillars.
Potted Plant/Open Terrarium Combo method

Here is a potted plant of fennel (Foeniculum vulgare) which serves as a great lab host of many machaon group swallowtails. The potted plants are in an open terrarium; but, to keep the plant and caterpillars from cooking, I have placed a screen top to allow for airflow. In this photo, the larvae feeding on the fennel are desert swallowtails (Papilio coloro.)
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