Butterfly Life-cycle

Being in New Zealand is no deterrent to studying some of the species you see regularly in Cornwall. I see more house sparrows, goldfinches, starlings, yellowhammers, song-thrushes, blackbirds, skylarks on my regular walks then I do when I am walking in the LAPWG area. I also regularly see wild flowers and even fungi that we have in our area too. Generally butterflies are quite different, but the dominant one is the Cabbage White, introduced here and is a pest. Everywhere I go I see them and it is a relatively rare treat to see some of the native butterflies.

Recently I came across a pupa on silver-beet picked from my small vegetable garden in Wellington. I had never followed the life-cycle of any moth or butterfly, so this seemed like a good opportunity. The timing did not work out to see the transformation to adult in detail, but I did get some interesting pictures to share with you. In the first picture of the pupa, you can make out the outline of a wing. In the second picture, about 10 days later, the emergence was very close, but I had to leave the house. If you want to see what the professionals can do then look at the Butterfly Life Cycle on Butterfly Guide.