Breeding the Painted Lady/Red Admiral (Vanessa) And The Longwing (Heliconid) Butterflies

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2 Breeding the Painted Lady/Red Admiral (Vanessa) And The Longwing (Heliconid) Butterflies By Nigel Venters (This paper was first issued as part of the Painted Lady and Longwing Butterflies workshop.) Female Painted Lady (Vanessa cardui) laying on Malva. Thistles and Malva are favourite host plants in the wild, but in captivity I like to use Stinging Nettles. Introduction As I mentioned in Article of this workshop (and think is worth repeating here) - it may be considered as strange to combine two very different families of butterflies into a single workshop. The Painted Ladies (Vanessa species from the Nymphalidae family) and the Longwings (Heliconid species from the Heliconiinae family) are far apart scientifically. I am well aware that many taxonomists would groan in disbelief at my combining these two families into the same workshop! However, my aim is to show how to breed butterflies from both these families in captivity in the most efficient way, minimizing the work, equipment and space required. From a butterfly breeder s point of view, these butterflies share many similar characteristics and raising methods! 1 By Nigel Venters

3 Of course the host plants between these two butterfly families are very different, but they also vary considerably within each family. I will cover these host plants in some depth later in this article. As I mentioned in Article 5.3.1, Monarch breeders need not worry about the parasite Ophryocystis elektroscirrha (such an awful name and best known as O.e.) as it does not occur in any of these species, being entirely restricted to the Danidae family of butterflies. So relax, if you breed these species you will be totally free from O.e.! However, this does not mean that you do not have to keep your breeding set-up clean from potential pathogens, as all species of butterflies will suffer and die in captivity unless you provide optimum breeding conditions. I do apologise to all of you, for the repeating the above notes, however we now move on to the options for successfully breeding all of these butterfly species that we focus on in this workshop. I. Breeding the Painted Lady, Red Admiral and Longwing Butterflies Where I live in Argentina, I have plenty of land, flight houses, a great climate, and the space to successfully breed all of these species of butterflies. I have devised methods to produce large numbers of healthy, vibrant butterflies with the least amount of work, time, space and equipment required. However, I am well aware that many of you will not have all these facilities available to you, and that space may be at a premium! The methods I m describing in this article provide for raising all of these butterflies in large numbers, with minimal space requirements. This article will cover the options for breeding all of these species, and in fact, regardless of the space I have available here for my butterfly breeding, I like to breed all of these species in cages! So don t worry if you have a small garden in fact, this can be the best way to breed these butterflies! So my intention is to provide you with breeding options, that you can easily recognise and separate, finding the methods most suitable for you, given the space and equipment you have available, and the climate you live in. Pairing the Butterflies The Flight house - Some General Notes All of the Painted Lady/Red Admiral group, and the Longwings will pair easily in a flight house. This can be both a benefit AND a challenge for you, as you must keep your eye on the butterflies to check for pairing and be able to separate paired females for subsequent egg laying in a cage. Leaving the females free-flying in a flight house is not an efficient way to collect the maximum eggs from each female, and is also very time consuming. 2 By Nigel Venters

4 Another issue is that these butterflies will lay a lot of eggs off the host plant, even in the almost natural conditions you provide in your flight house. Many eggs will be laid on the netting, the nectar plants and also on the general structure. Of course, eggs will also be laid on the actual host plants as well. However, a flight house does not provide completely natural conditions. Problems arise from the Painted Lady/Red Admiral group (Vanessas) and most of the Longwings, spending a lot of time high up at the sunniest point of the flight house trying to escape. Time spent struggling to escape means less feeding/nectaring time, and life spans can be shortened. This is less of a problem with the rainforest Longwing species. It may not be practical for you to keep checking the butterflies to find pairings and marking the females. If you decide to use your flight house for egg laying, there are adjustments you will need to make to your setup reduce egg wastage. You will need to ensure that your potted host plants are positioned high in the enclosure, placed on tables that are raised to chest height (for easy observation by you). You will need to offer flowering nectar plants in hanging baskets. This way, since the butterflies spend much time high up in the flight house, nectar and host plants are never too far away. Of course, it is a good idea to have host plants and nectar plants on the table for collection by you. No host plants should be planted in the soil or elsewhere in the flight house. With the Painted Lady (Vanessa cardui), this can be a problem as it feeds on so many different host plants, and they will often choose to lay their eggs even on the other nectar plants in the enclosure! As you can see from these notes, I would not recommend using the flight house for egg laying, or for raising larvae. I have outlined the drawbacks for you to consider, if you choose this option. The Flight House - Detailed Notes Like many species of butterflies, both these groups of butterflies are able to pair naturally on the day of emergence, but usually pairings start on day two after emergence, and onwards. It is always best if the males are a few days old, and the females are fresh. Handpairing is possible, but very difficult with the Painted Lady/Red Admirals group. Hand pairing is easier with the Longwings... however, natural pairings are easy to induce and hand pairing is not worth the bother for either species! With some of the forest species of Longwings, you can even see gatherings of males, waiting by a female pupa which is about to emerge. As soon as the pupal skin breaks they will try and pair with her, and she finds herself paired even before her wing have expanded. Depending on temperature, the pairings can be short, usually less than 30 minutes in duration. All of these species have a courtship flight of some form or another in the wild, but this is less apparent in captivity. It is interesting to note that with the rainforest Longwings courtship by the males, it seems to be a learned activity. Freshly emerged males rarely bother using an elaborate routine, but after a week or so this all changes, and I watch a fantastic display of this which lasts more than 30 minutes in the Ecuadorian Amazon. The male flutters just above the female, and they both appear to be hovering in the air. The male dips down, and gently touches the female s wings every minute or so to check his progress. I am glad to say I have this on video! 3 By Nigel Venters

5 All female Longwings pair only once. The females emit a scent (pheronome) after pairing, to discourage other males from trying to pair with her. As for the Painted Lady/Red Admiral group, to the best of my knowledge, the females only pair once! Of course the males can pair several times during their life for all of these species. Pairing Inside the Flight House This combined photo shows part of the problem with the adults gathering at a sunny point high up in the flight house. The hanging baskets for nectar are essential. As I mentioned in the general notes section above, there is the drawback of these butterflies congregating in the (high up) sunny areas. This does not affect achieving successful pairing, and obtaining pairings is easy. Shortly after I released the Gulf Fritillaries (Agraulis vanillae) shown in the photo above, the pairing started and the photo below shows this. The red arrow on the photo to the left is only to draw your attention to the subject, while on the photo to the right, the red arrow points to where I have marked the female. I used to use a dab of nail polish to do this, but now prefer to use a permanent ink marker, as these dry so quickly. The danger of nail varnish is that unless you are careful, you can stick the wings together and the female won t be able to fly! Marking the adult female during pairing is a good way to ensure that you can easily collect them later and set them up for egg laying in a popup cage. 4 By Nigel Venters

6 The hanging baskets do make a huge difference between success and failure. I do urge you to consider using them. I usually use a dwarf Sweet William (Dianthus barbatus) for these baskets. These do well in small containers, and will provide plenty of nectar and flower continually all season. Climatic Considerations This paper is written to cover your requirements, regardless of your climate, however if you live in an area which has high sunshine levels, and high temperatures, you will need to consider shading sections of your flight house. The further north (or south in the southern hemisphere) you live, you will have far less of a problem, however, I still recommend that you consider making shade available when you need it. You will notice from the photos above that I like to use an open-weave shade cloth to cover my flight houses. This allows a good airflow and is essential for the health of the set-up. However, I also use shading, which is adjustable to where I want it. Shade is vital if you are breeding the rainforest Longwings as they will certainly suffer in full sunshine. 5 By Nigel Venters

7 This photo shows how to use a heavy gauge shade cloth that can be adjusted to where you want it. It is important to be able to let hot air escape through the roof from inside the flight house, and allow a good airflow between the shade cloth and the roof. This is constructed at both ends of the flight house and can be adjusted to provide shade where wanted, or wound shut when not needed. 6 By Nigel Venters

8 Obtaining Eggs in the Flight House Host plant tables are easily made. I just use a plank and two wooden poles. You will get more eggs on these plants than those left at floor level. Of course this is less of a problem when breeding the Longwings, as Passiflora plants are vines and grow high on trellises. As I mentioned, using the flight house is not the most efficient way of getting the maximum amount of eggs from your butterflies. It creates work searching for eggs, you will get less eggs per female, and there is always the danger that egg parasites will find some of the eggs before you do! However, if you really need to choose this option, the photo above shows how to raise the host plants and some nectar plants off the floor. The nectar plants are only there to attract the females, and having a host plant next to it increases the amount of eggs you ll get. In fact, you ll get ten times more eggs by raising the host plants like this than you will with the plants left at floor level. Do remember with all the species covered in this paper that many 7 By Nigel Venters

9 eggs are also laid on the netting, nectar plants - just about anywhere they can lay them, they will! This is wasteful. Pairing in Pop-Up Cages As I mentioned before, if you don t have a flight house, don t worry! All of the species covered in this article will pair easily in a good-sized Pop-up cage. The cages I use are obtained in the UK, from Gribblybugs. These are of a very high quality and hard to beat! See the Butterfly Boutique website, for a list of suppliers for the Pop-Up Cages in the United States and U.K. The Pop-Up Cage Here is a photo of the Pop-up cages I use. I am in the picture to show the size of the cage (and, if you have never met me, you can also see what I look like!) These cages are 44 inches high by 24 inches wide, (110 cms. X 60 cms.) and I can guarantee the mesh is parasitoid proof. It has a double zipper opening so you can open and shut from each end of the opening. Note that the zipper allows space at the top. This is useful when changing host plants, as you can do this without disturbing pupa and pupating larvae hanging at the top of the cage. You can place many cages side by side to make the best use of your available space. The cage collapses completely flat, and is very easy to sterilize by dipping in sterilizing solution. Note: You can see the benefit of using black netting in this picture - you can see right through the cage netting! With white netting this would not be possible! Many of the Painted Lady/Red Admiral and Longwing species will also pair in smaller cages, but I found this size to be ideal for all the butterflies covered in this article. 8 By Nigel Venters

10 Getting your butterflies to pair is simple. Simply set the cage up in dappled sunshine (try and leave one edge in sunshine, and they can move to the shade if they need to). It is not necessary to include host plants to get pairings. However, I do allow them to feed themselves during this part of the breeding cycle, and place a large nectar plant inside. The type of nectar plant is relatively unimportant, but personally I always use Yellow Lantana. This is because it is both high in nectar, and it flowers profusely for the whole season. Choose whatever nectar plant suits you and your climate best! This is a tall cage, so chock the potted plant up on bricks so that the flowers are just a few inches (10 cms.) from the top of the cage. The bricks add stability and prevent the wind from blowing it over. A ten inch (25 cms.) pot of yellow Lantana is ideal for inside the Pop-Up cage. No host plants are needed for pairing. The set-up After preparing the cage, it is then simple to just add your butterflies. If you have difficulty in determining if the butterflies are males or females, don t worry too much, if you are using around 12 specimens, you ll surely get a mix. However, if you look at the information in Article One and Article Two, this will certainly help you determine the sexes. If possible, use approximately 50% males and 50% females. 9 By Nigel Venters

11 Painted Ladies and Red Admirals The sexes can be difficult to determine in the Painted Lady/Red Admiral group, and as the male s claspers can be difficult to see. However, the males will have a short line and the female a more oval gap. You may need to apply some gentle pressure to the abdomen to see this clearly. A magnifying glass will help you do this. Perhaps an easier guide is that the females of all the butterflies in this group have a more rounded wing shape, are generally larger with fatter bodies than the males. The Longwings The sexes are much easier to determine with the Longwings. Many species show some sexual dimorphism (change in colour and pattern between males and females). See the photo below showing the male and female Gulf Fritillary (Agraulis vanillae). The female has a round, yellow ball-like tip, and the male displays claspers, with a yellow pad on each side. Most Longwings react in exactly the same way when turned upside down between your forefinger and thumb.. The Longwing butterflies are easy to separate into their sexes. The males all have well-developed claspers, shown in this photo. The female extends a ball like opening, Finally, now that your setup is organized for pairing, ensure that the host plant is watered. Mist the top of the cage as often as you can, especially in hot, dry weather. The misting can be just a hand mister filled with water, but misting certainly stimulates pairing! Getting the Females to Lay Unlike many other species of butterflies which are quite selective about their egg laying, both the Painted Lady/Red Admirals and the Longwings lay a lot of eggs off their host plant in captivity. In fact, many will freely lay eggs regardless of the presence of host plants, which is again unusual! The forest Longwing species are a bit more particular about where they lay. More about this later. The eggs are delicate, and are best not removed. I tackle this problem of laying off host plant in two different ways. I give both options later, and leave it to you to decide what suits 10 By Nigel Venters

12 you best. Both are equally effective. But first I need to discuss the host plants you will need for the females to lay their eggs. Host Plants - The Painted Lady/Red Admiral Group The Painted Lady Red Admiral group lay on a vast selection of host plants in the wild, however, the Red Admiral group are more selective, but with lay on all species of Urticae, the Nettle family. Although the Painted Ladies species often prefer other host plants to Nettles, they will lay on them in captivity and the larvae do well on them. To try and keep the range of host plant species to a minimum, and also to allow me to breed a wide variety when I choose, I use Stinging Nettles for all of the species in this group that I breed! There are in fact other benefits for choosing Stinging Nettles as a general host plant for this group of butterflies, apart from the fact you need some decent rubber gloves handy! Stinging Nettles do really well in 10-inch, (15 cms.) pots. This measurement is the widest span across the open top of the pot. Nettles enjoy a moist soil and grow amazingly fast, and this includes regrowth after being stripped. The nettle plants respond well to a halfstrength liquid fertiliser. The amount of leaf per space produced by these plants is unbeatable! This is very important to a butterfly breeder! Stinging Nettles growing in a 10-inch pot, with so much growth you can t see the pot! 11 By Nigel Venters

13 Of course Malva is a good alternative to Stinging Nettles, but remember the Red Admirals will not touch Malva. Host Plants - The Longwings Group All of this group feed on various species of Passion Vines, some eat only a few selected species and others will take a wide range of species. However, I have found in captivity, that almost every species will eat the Blue Passion Vine, (Passiflora caerulea). I do have several species of Passion Vine growing, but the others are mainly for show. I rely solely on this species as a host plant for my breeding. There are also some interesting characteristics that this plant has which are very useful for the butterfly breeder. The first point worth mentioning about this plant is that it is the hardiest of all the Passion Vines that are evergreen. (Many other hardy species die back to nothing in winter.) The second point is that it is amazingly tolerant of being cut and placed in water! There is no die-back at all, and if left long enough they will root! Now this presents great opportunities to the butterfly breeder. The main problem with Passion Vines is that they require a frame or wooden trellis as support when they grow. Trying to effectively sleeve a plant and the support is almost impossible, and is very time consuming. How much easier it is to just cut off the host plant you need, place it in water, and know there will be no waste at all! (All of this host plant information will become clearer when we reach the egg laying and larval lifecycle to pupa section of this article!) If you live in a hot sunny climate, Passiflora caerulea does much better in partial shade. Compare the two photos above, as both these plants were planted as tiny cuttings at the same time, two years previously. The further north you live, and if you experience temperatures down to 19 o f. (-7 o C.) you should plant this plant in full sun, facing the sun with some protection from cold winds. A wall is a great option. 12 By Nigel Venters

14 The photos above shows what a difference location makes when planting Passiflora caerulea. Even the leaves on the sunny-positioned plants are smaller and thinner than the rampant growth of the plant situated in semi-shade. If you live in areas that experience temperatures lower than 19 o f. (-7 o C.) you will need to consider winter protection with bubble-glaze plastic wrapping. Now Back to Getting the Females to Lay Eggs! This is a fairly simple process. Simply change the nectar plant inside the Pop-Up cage for the correct host plant for either Painted Lady/Red Admiral or Longwings. You do have the option of leaving the nectar plant inside, which will save you time in feeding the females. (Evict the males at this time, as they will just bother and distract the already-paired females causing reduced egg laying.) However, as the adults lay many eggs both on and off the host plant, some of the eggs will be on the nectar plant. I do prefer to hand feed the gravid females each morning to ensure they are exceptionally well fed, as this ensures the maximum egg production for each female. The benefit of using the Pop-Up method is that regardless of where the eggs are laid, the netting is too fine for newly-hatched larvae to pass through. At this stage I add a second host plant and separate them so each one touches the side of the netting. The newlyhatched larvae just wander around within the cage and easily find their host plant. I usually aim to produce 150-plus pupae per cage, and compared to other methods of breeding these species the work required with this set-up is very minimal! Painted Lady eggs all look similar in shape. However, they will vary a little in colour when first laid. The photo shows the Painted Lady (Vanessa cardui) egg on the top right, which is perhaps the most visible of all the different species when first laid, as it is a pale, shining green! The egg on the top left is from The West Coast Lady (Vanessa annabella) and is virtually identical but is a a more deep green and is not as easily seen on the host plant. The photo below shows Malva leaves with both these species eggs. It is a little out of focus, look carefully and you can make out the different colours! 13 By Nigel Venters

15 The Forest-Living Longwings If you look back to Article Two, you will see that I place these into a different category from all the other Longwings, from a breeder s point of view. The reason is that they too, can either lay eggs singly, (or in small clusters as the Zebra Longwing often does) but also, they can be really very selective about where they lay their eggs. You will still get some eggs off the host plant of course. But before laying an egg, the female always inspects the leaf or tendril to check that no other eggs have already been laid there. In the wild, many eggs laid on the leaves are eaten by ants which continually patrol these plants. The ants are more reluctant to wander down the thin tendrils, so it is mainly these eggs and the resulting larvae that survive. Now a neat trick into fooling the female is to lay threads of thin, green nylon string over the plant. The female just treats these as tendrils and consequently you ll get a lot more eggs and faster too! Of course the forest Longwing species that lay a huge egg batch are no problem and can be treated in the same way as the first group. Regardless of whether you are breeding the Painted Lady, Red Admiral species, or the Longwings, the process that follows is simple. When the first two potted Nettles, or Passion Vine in water, are well eaten, it is just a case of adding more host plants until you have four pots or bottles with host plant in the cage. When you place new pots/bottles of host plant inside the cage, revolve them around the cage until the original pot is closest to the zipper opening. Of course, this plant will be the first to be totally consumed and when this happens, simply replace it with a new pot, having first of all moved the pots around again. I use a large plastic bottle for the Passion Vine cuttings. It is important to use a bottle with a wide base so it will be stable and won t tip over. These are the sort of bottles you can buy for pickling onions, etc. (See photo and description later in this paper.) The other important thing you have to watch, is that larvae are quite stupid and will wander down the stems and drown themselves in the water unless you plug the top of the bottle! Again, please see the photo and description later in this article, where I provide details about how to do this using a styrene lid. This is perfect for the job, as you can easily just pierce the top with a knife and poke the host plant stem directly down through it into the water. As I mentioned, the cut plants will stay fresh until totally stripped by the larvae, and will even root in time! Be sure to wear rubber gloves when you change the pots of Nettles with the Painted Ladies and Red Admirals, as you may need to snip a few remaining capsules of leaves containing larvae. The larvae like to construct little capsules from the leaves and live inside them. They draw the leaves together with silk threads, which are produced from spinets located near their jaws. Just snip off and throw any of these capsules containing larvae, back inside the cage and these larvae will just wander up to fresh host plants. 14 By Nigel Venters

16 There is no need to ever touch your larvae, and they will happily crawl across to the new host plants as and when they need to, they will then pupate inside the cage, and I just remove the host plants, and leave the pupae in place to emerge. Red Admiral larvae and pupae look quite similar to Painted Lady larvae and pupae, but there is variation in the colour of the larvae, some being much darker than this one shown here. The pupae of the Red Admiral are often clustered, either at the top of the cage or on the host plant, like these shown here. Hygiene and Cleanliness This is a very healthy breeding system with good airflow, that uses fresh, live host plants, and these things will make a huge difference to your success when breeding butterflies. Most disease problems encountered when breeding butterflies, are self-induced, resulting from unhealthy, stressful conditions. Bacteria are naturally present on larvae, and these never become a problem with healthy larvae in optimum conditions. When you change the conditions to closed, dank, airless boxes, and cut host plants that dry out, the bacteria then overwhelm the larvae. This is the answer to the question that many breeders ask, Where did the disease come from? The Pop-Up raising set up will present you with very few problems. Of course, the cages will require sterilization between each use/batch. 15 By Nigel Venters

17 I never bother to remove the frass from the bottom of the cage until the whole batch has pupated. To remove the frass, I use a nylon brush and a small, hand-operated rechargeable vacuum cleaner. Always dispose of the frass into the trash - never try and use it as fertiliser. Be sure to thoroughly clean the small filter and capture area in the vacuum cleaner, as well as the brush every time you use it. Once clean and dry, I then spray the vacuum cleaner and brush with alcohol. Any effecting sterilising agent will work, of course. Between each use, I also sterilise the bottles used to hold the cut Passion Vines. However, with the Nettles, I just sweep off the loose frass from inside the pot, wipe the pot down with sterilising solution, and cut the stalks back to about an inch above the soil. I then give the plant a few puffs of sterilising solution, and then fertilise the pot. The re-growth with Nettles is rapid! I am always conscious of the possibility of cross contamination. With multiple cages, before I visit the next cage, I squirt a little hand sanitizing gel on my hands. This only takes a few seconds, and does help manage a healthy butterfly breeding environment - well worth it! Hand steriliser is available everywhere. This gel is alcohol based and will evaporate in seconds after wringing your hands together. I use it after I finish cleaning one cage, before moving on to the next cage. I always have a bottle in my pocket! The process described above may seem a little simplistic, but it is very effective. I can t remember when I last had a disease problem, so many, many years ago I d guess, and this was before I had learned to cope with breeding butterflies effectively! 16 By Nigel Venters

18 Some Notes on Hand Feeding the Adult Females for Maximum Egg Laying Some of you may have seen my description of the peg system I have devised for feeding the adults by hand. I repeat it here for those that haven t seen it before. Adult butterflies eagerly feed by themselves by sucking on pads or sponges soaked in artificial nectar (which is basically sugar water). This is fine in a flight house, supplements the nectar flowers available, and allows greater numbers to stay healthy. However, I treat my egg laying females differently when it comes to feeding. I don t want to waste time chasing them around. I want to make sure they get a great feeding of high quality food to stay healthy and encourage maximum egg laying and egg production within their bodies. Force-feeding the females on the peg sytem (photo below) saves me time and space as I don t need extra potted nectar plants to put into the laying cages with the host plants. I have already mentioned the egg wastage from these species laying on host plants, so this saves me adult numbers too! One further point - butterflies free feeding at pads are often fleeting. They feed and fly on to other nectar sources, as is normal for them. It is only me that knows I have to ensure that the butterfly takes on enough food at feeding to sustain it all day long! So the peg system is designed to not only hold the butterfly in place while feeding, but also to trap its tongue over the ridge of the nectar container. Once it is feeding, a siphon effect starts and it is me who decides when they have enough to eat and not them! I also feed my release butterflies on the peg system just before packing them off! All species are treated the same way, and here are a few photos of the feeding set-up. Above is an example of a feeding trough. The clothes pins or pegs have a small lead fishing weight glue-gunned into the bottom peg to add stability. All the pegs are held together just with their own grip. No glue is needed between them, as you will need to be able to adjust the butterfly up, down and forward to get the correct feeding position. You unroll their tongues with a pin pushed into a pencil rubber. 17 By Nigel Venters

19 Of course you can feed your painted Ladies and Longwings in the same way, when you have large numbers for release. However, for my breeders, I feed fewer numbers at one time, and I will use a bottle top (glue gunned into place) filled with artificial nectar, on a plastic tray. The next photo shows some Gulf Fritillary breeders nectaring at this alternative peg setup used for feeding smaller numbers. Gulf Fritillary breeders arranged around a pop bottle top filled with sugarwater nectar. I feed them every morning for five minutes on 15% sugar solution that contains a couple of drops of mineral-rich soy sauce. Use pegs with an open gape (above, left). Use duct tape or a glue gun to stick the lead weight to the base peg for stability. Push a needle or pin into a pencil eraser for unrolling tongues. Blunt the tip and unroll the tongue from below the coil. Don t try and push the needle through the centre of the coiled tongue. The breeders are fed every morning, on a 15% sugar solution that I make up as a syrup and dilute as I need it. I add a few drops of mineral-rich soy sauce (not the diet version) to the syrup until it becomes a very pale tea colour. The soy sauce adds minerals and salts to the diet. Once the syrup is cool, I bottle it in empty pop bottles. The syrup stays good for ages and does not need to be in a fridge. However, once diluted to a 15% solution, it keeps for around three days before it starts to ferment and needs changing. 18 By Nigel Venters

20 After feeding, I carry the butterflies to the cages still clamped onto the top peg, which grips their wings, and release them for egg laying. At night I just snap all the pegs onto my teeshirt, walk to the cages and remount the butterflies on the pegs before I bring them into laboratory ready to feed the first thing next day. You d be surprised at just how many pegs with butterflies your hand can hold! This saves me time. Hand Feeding Butterflies If you have not tried feeding butterflies this way, do give it a try. It is easy and can be done in a few minutes. The species doesn t matter! Painted Lady/Red Admiral, Longwing or any species all are treated the same way. Remember how much time and space this will save you as you won t have to produce potted nectar plants in perfect condition for your butterflies to feed on! A well-fed butterfly has nothing to do but lay eggs, when there are no nectar plants to distract it! Butterfly Display Houses Many Butterfly Display Houses do not display any of the Painted Lady/Red Admiral group. However, the Longwings are very popular - especially the forest species as they live for so long, are very beautiful and have a very slow, fluttering flight. Unfortunately, because they live for so long, they do also have a rather frustrating egg laying behaviour. You are unlikely to get more (at best) than ten eggs per day from a gravid female. And, there will also be days when virtually no eggs at all are laid. Of course, over many months this becomes a huge amount of eggs! As mentioned before, (unless they are the batch-laying species) you can increase this amount by draping green nylon strings over the host plants, which they then treat as new Passion Vine tendrils. This results in prolific egg laying! One other drawback is that many Butterfly display houses do not use the Gulf Fritillary Longwings group in their set-up. The reason being, that these butterflies lay many eggs quickly, and the larvae will strip all the Passion Vines, and out-compete the slow-laying 19 By Nigel Venters

21 forest species. problems occur. In the wild, these two groups do not occupy the same habitat, so no The Gulf Fritillary group are such beautiful butterflies with large, silver spots on their under sides. It seems a shame that they are not displayed very often. Of course, with separate captive breeding and easy recognition of the adults, it would be fairly simple to release single sexes only to avoid the Passion Vine stripping problem. One other option (expensive) is to separate the display and have a walk through door into a more shaded area, where the forest Longwing species along with all the other strictly tropical rain forest butterflies like Morphos, and Caligos can be displayed separately. Of course, many of these species could be displayed flying in both areas. I previously mentioned that the forest Longwing live a long time as they are able to collect pollen at the base of their tongue and convert it into a high-protein food, using a special enzyme that dissolves the pollen into a soup that can be sipped by the butterfly. These pollen balls can be quite large, and easily seen by eye. These forest Longwings can collect pollen from any source, but in Article Two I named plants that are especially favoured, such as tropical climbing plants from the Cucumber, Melon, Pumpkin family (Cucurbitaceae) which are known as Psiguria species. These flowers are rich in pollen and nectar, but it is the pollen they concentrate on! Psiguria, a member of the melon/cucumber family (Cucurbitaceae) that the forest Longwings rely on heavily to gather their pollen for feeding. A Compact, Efficient Operation I do enjoy spending time experimenting with my breeding operations and set-ups. For the last few years, I have been devising methods for breeding large numbers of healthy butterflies, using the minimum space and least amount of equipment required to do so. Now having taken these butterflies through many breeding cycles using these experimental set-ups, I am confident in showing you these efficient raising systems that save space, time, labor and equipment! Also, these set-ups provide natural conditions and get the livestock out of the closed-tub methods for healthier, disease-free butterflies! 20 By Nigel Venters

22 Eggs For Sale If you sell your butterfly eggs, it can be a problem collecting eggs for packing and sending to your customers. One problem is that eggs laid on leaves do not travel well, especially if there is no next-day delivery service. This is caused by two factors. Once the leaf is cut and enclosed in a plastic box, it can become mouldy. The mould filaments will penetrate through the bottom of the eggs and kill them. A second factor that is not widely known is that many cut leaves, when enclosed in a small air-tight box, give off gases that can also kill the eggs. It is far better to pack and send eggs off of the host plant. With many species this can also be a problem - removing eggs from the leaves - and for the species covered in this article, it is a nightmare! Even using a water mister to soften the glue used by the female to stick her eggs to the plant (and of course any other surface in the breeding cage), followed by careful use of a small paint brush, will cause many eggs to collapse and die when you remove them. It is far better to send eggs laid by the female directly onto kitchen paper towels! I have gone into pairing in some detail earlier in this article, and the space requirement to ensure success to pair all these species. However, once paired, things change, and the gravid female does not require this amount of space to lay her eggs in large numbers. Here s a simple set-up to show you how to collect eggs on paper towels for easy and efficient shipping. And also during this section, you will also see the plastic bottle set-up I use for Passion Vines, described in the pairing and breeding cages section. This is a long article, and I waited until this section to show this to you! This plastic box is 14 X 14 X 14, (16 Cms. X 16 Cms. X 16 Cms.). First, I line the box walls inside with paper towel. I use small bits of cellophane or scotch tape to hold the paper towel in place. (Make sure it is taped taught to the sides, so that butterflies won t get trapped behind it.) I place a loose sheet of paper towel on the bottom of the box. Next comes the plastic bottle, with a cut-out segment of styrene/styrofoam fitted for the top. The host plant stems are poked through the styrene, which has been duct taped closed on both sides of the top to be able to hold it shut. 21 By Nigel Venters

23 To prevent eggs from being laid on the lid, I lay a separate, loose sheet of netting across the top before putting the lid on. Boxes with side clips (photo far right) are best, to keep the lid from being blown off in the wind. The above set-up works well for Painted Ladies/Red Admirals and the Longwings. Of course, for the Painted Ladies and Longwings I use a potted Nettle in place of the bottle with Passion Vine. The rest of the process is the same as previously described for cage laying. I just hand feed the gravid females using the peg system every morning, place in dappled sunshine, and mist the set-up often during the day. Remember, this set-up is for those times when you need to be able to easily obtain eggs on the paper towels. Of course, there will be eggs on the host plant and the top netting too, but the plastic edges inside of the box will be avoided by the butterflies as there is no grip for them. You ll get masses of eggs on the paper towels. The eggs laid on the host plant and top netting can be used for continued breeding. To ship the eggs, simply remove the paper towel and cut the segments of the paper towel with the eggs into small pieces. As is normal with captive breeding, there are favoured places to lay with the box, and many eggs will be concentrated together. So, a small paper towel segment can have many eggs close together, in various places. This is a time saver, as you ll never have to cut the paper towelling into segments with a single individual egg on it! Eggs laid on paper towelling can be in transit as long as five days, staying fresh and viable. I only use this set-up to get my eggs on paper towels, as I don t like to use plastic boxes for raising the rest of the lifecycle. Condensation build-up inside boxes does not bother the laying female adults, but will certainly affect the larval and pupal stages. You can see how I overcome condensation water build-up in the next section. 22 By Nigel Venters

24 Shipping Eggs Still on Leaves When you are shipping eggs and have the option of overnight or two-day delivery service, eggs can be shipped on the leaves/plants they were laid on. The photo at left shows the Flo Pak florist bag with fluid to keep the plant sprig from drying out or dying in transit. These little florist bags have a foam top to insert the sprig into, that prevent leakage of the fluid. Connie Hodsdon of Manatee Gardens in Florida shipped this batch of Monarch eggs to Linda Rogers. For the bags, see These are just perfect for this use! Start with a Styrofoam thermal shipping box, and (1) lay a frozen polar pack in the bottom. Next, (2) tape a cardboard piece that fits tightly into the box, to hold down and separate the polar pack from the eggs/plants. (3) The plant sprigs are then laid carefully and packed (4) with soft padding to protect during shipment. (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) 23 By Nigel Venters

25 Another Space Saving Breeding Option You May Like to Consider As I mentioned above, I only use the plastic box option to obtain eggs on paper towels! I never use plastic boxes for the rest of the lifecycle, because even with a netted top, you can get condensation build-up which will affect the health of your larvae. Those of you who experience a cold winter, will be well aware of the difference that double or triple glazing makes within your home to the amount of condensation you find on your windows on a cold morning. The extra layers of glass reduce condensation to almost nothing. Plastic boxes build up condensation for the same reason - the rapid temperature changes from within the box to the outside, which has only a thin layer of plastic between the different environments. So for a couple of years now, I have been working to resolve this problem. I have come to the conclusion that the only real answer is to use Styrene/Styrofoam boxes. The boxes I use are around one inch (2.4 Cms.) thick, and completely solve this problem. So for the first time, I can share with you another breeding option that will save space, and will effectively get your livestock through the entire lifecycle with no problems - and again, with the minimum work and time spent in doing so! The Styrene Box Breeding Method You have to start this off with gravid females. Refer back to the pairing guide in this article to achieve pairings and produce your gravid females before continuing. Here are the Styrene/Styrofoam boxes I use for this: The photos above are of a standard sized box of 18 (46 Cms.) tall X 18 (46 Cms.) X 14 (36 Cms.). I cut out the top and cover the hole with netting as shown. Be careful with the glue you use to seal the netting as any solvent glue will melt the Styrene. 24 By Nigel Venters

26 Basically the set up is the same as the plastic box as shown earlier, only of course I don t need to line this cage with paper towels. I use this method for both Painted Lady/Red Admirals and the Longwings. Of course all the gravid females, from both the Painted Lady/Red Admiral group and the Longwings, lay really well in these boxes. I don t want to repeat the same photos as before, and the only differences between this setup, and the previous Pop-Up Cage set-ups are that the lids are removable, and when using Stinging Nettles, I use an eight-inch, (20 Cms.) pot, which is a low-profile pot. The bottle set-up for the Longwings is identical, and all I do is poke Passion Vine into the bottle through the lid when needed and remove Passion Vine that is stripped. One other difference that is helpful, is that the lid is removable. I raise the same number of larvae in the Styrene boxes as I do in the Pop-Up Cages: 150 plus. I can cope with this number with considerably less space available than the cage, because I just change the lid as the pupa gather at the top. Obviously, you ll need a number of these boxes to just change the lid to an empty box with pupae when you need to. One further benefit of changing the lid when a reasonable number of pupae have formed, is that when placed on another empty Styrene box, these pupae, having formed together will emerge together, also, as a batch. An additional point worth mentioning is that I also have a version of this Styrene box, with a 20-watt reptile heat pad fixed to the bottom. The heat pad is then covered with a sheet of paper towel to keep it clean. Putting the lid with pupae on it, on one of these boxes allows me to get my pupae to emerge in half the time than if left to emerge naturally! This is useful if you need some adults fast! Of course, I never touch the pupae, and they emerge where they pupated! Note: If you use a heat pad, then mist the kitchen roll sheet of paper on the bottom of the box regularly. There is no need to mist the pupae as the atmosphere inside becomes humid, and for pupae, this is ideal. This photo shows two lids from the same box of developing larvae that pupated a few days apart. I just changed the lid to allow more space for more to pupate from the same box. Then I just change the lid again for the remainder of the larvae to pupate on, and even a further lid if I need to. The lids are placed on empty boxes, and pupae are allowed to emerge. 25 By Nigel Venters

27 The butterflies emerge in the Styrene boxes having never been touched by me in their whole lifecycle. This is a real space and time, and work saver! Best to hand mist the top, and move to a darkened room before removing the butterflies from the boxes. Or, open the box inside a Pop-Up cage! Of course, after each use the boxes will need to be washed and sterilized... the same process with the nylon brush, hand vacuum cleaner and then the sterilizing solution. Bleach sterilising solutions don t damage the Styrene! I never bother to remove the frass during the larval development process. The system works perfectly and if space saving is important to you, then give this method a try! Select whichever method have described, that suits you the best and it will work perfectly! All of the methods I have written about in this article, have put through countless generations of testing, to ensure I have ironed out any problems. Breeding Out of Season, or in Unfavourable Climates If you live in a northern climate that is unsuitable to continue to breeding butterflies in the winter, there are some options you can choose to continue with your breeding stock. Many of the Butterfly Display houses close for the coldest and darkest months, and this is of course due to the heating expense of a huge area, at a time when visitor numbers may be low. For many of them, it s just not worth the expense to be open! Of course, the exhibit houses need to protect their plants, and a minimal amount of heat is required to do this (compared to what is needed for displaying flying butterflies). Temperatures around 50 o F. (10 o C.) at night and a day temperature of between 64 o F. (18 o C.) and 68 o F. (20 o C.) is more than enough to keep them ticking over. When the new season starts, they just buy in new livestock. 26 By Nigel Venters

28 However, all is not lost. Anyone with a small greenhouse can breed and display these butterflies in the warmer months, and then move indoors for the winter, breeding a small number of individuals to keep Ticking over until the warmer spring weather arrives, when you can start again in numbers. All these butterflies respond quite well to fluorescent lighting as a sun substitute, and it is really only a case of keep sufficient host plant growing to be able to feed them. I do intend to write a full article to present with a workshop, that expands on this subject at a later date. During this workshop, we re open to any questions concerning this option, of course. Parasitoids I kept this subject for the end of this paper, and separated it from the section on hygiene and disease above, as it really takes only a brief note to explain the potential problems you may encounter. Parasitoids (often wrongly termed parasites ) are flies and wasps that seek out butterfly, (and other insect) larvae, and then lay their eggs either on the skin or penetrate the skin with a thin ovipositor, to lay eggs directly into the larvae s body. The resulting eggs hatch out inside the larvae, and consume the contents of the larvae. Skilfully, they avoid all major organs until they have finished their own lifecycle. Some of these parasitoids are tiny, in fact so small that some species specialise by attacking butterfly eggs. Now you will understand for the need to keep a tight-weaved netting covering your stock! The only stage that is not attacked by these pests are the adult butterflies. As long as you use a parasitoid-proof netting for your equipment in the methods described above, you will have no problems from parasitoids. I mentioned under the section on Pop-Up cages that I use only the black mesh units, and these are totally parasitoid proof. The photo above shows why I like to use black netting! You can see through black netting on the left, but white netting (photo right) reflects the light back at you making it difficult to see inside. This is the same plant, with just a change of netting. It is always useful to see what is going on inside your cages, and this saves you having to open the zipper entry, and of course saves you time! 27 By Nigel Venters

29 Predators Predators, mostly ants and spiders, can be a problem. However, the only way for them to gain entry into the (black mesh, Gribblybugs) Pop-Up cages would be if they were on the host plants. If you are using potted plants, then turn the pot on its side and give it a couple of sharp taps before you put it inside the cage. Do the same for the Passion Vine cuttings, giving them a quick shake before you put them inside the cage. This will dislodge most predators, and as you are breeding in such large numbers, the very few small predators that may get entry can only feed on a very few of your larvae. I have never found this to be a problem with these set-ups. Obtaining Livestock If you are operating a butterfly exhibit, you will either be getting stock from a wholesaler, (Europe), a breeder in sub-tropical US, or direct from the tropical butterfly farms from around the World. It does surprise me that exhibitors don t do more in-house breeding, to supplement the butterfly numbers required to keep an impressive display. There are some unusual exceptions of course, and here I have to mention The Niagara Falls Butterfly Exhibit, who had an interesting breeding operation when I visited them in Also, in particular there is Butterfly World UK, where the owner (my old friend Gareth), breeds thousands of tropical butterflies every year! If you are ever in the UK, I am sure he would be happy to show you (as a fellow breeding enthusiast!) his breeding areas and set-ups. These are quite impressive! Of course, there are other butterfly exhibits that breed a limited number of tropical butterflies. However, obtaining non-native butterfly stock for an exhibit in the US is impossible unless you have a USDA-permitted containment facility built to rigid requirements, with such features as the double-skinned enclosure. Fortunately, if you live in Europe there are no such restrictions. There are some butterfly wholesalers that import tropical butterfly pupae from all around the world, and sell them on. Most of their business is with the large number of tropical butterfly display houses in Europe. However, anyone, hobbyist, collector, or breeder, can purchase live pupae from these outlets without the need for any licence or regulation. The only restriction is that you are not allowed to release non-native species into the wild. So it is a simple matter for you to obtain many different species of tropical forest Longwings (and just about anything else!) to breed. Two of the best contacts that you may find useful in Europe are the (U.K.) Stratford Butterfly Farm pupae shop, And the (UK) London Pupae Supply. An internet search will provide you with the websites for these suppliers! 28 By Nigel Venters

30 Breeding Butterflies Indoors Having lived many years in England, and breeding many tropicals, I had to adapt my breeding set-ups to ensure success, and also designed my set-ups to consume the minimal electricity and remain effective. Below is an efficient way to breed butterflies indoors. No need to heat the whole room - this saves you money! This description is for a single unit. Simply multiply this by the number of cages you would like to run simultaneously. Equipment 1. Large Pop-Up cage 2. slab of 1 thick (2.5 Cms) styrofoam, for cage to sit on 3. A 20-watt reptile heat pad 4. Roll of plastic bubble glaze (wide enough to go around the cage) 5. Fluorescent lighting unit with tubes, to hang over cages 6. Tube of silicone 7. Roll of kitchen paper towels 8. Hand spray water mister Method Fit reptile heat pad into cage. It s best to take the plug off the pad and pass the cable through a small hole in the bottom of the Pop-Up cage, then silicone the hole around the wire. Wrap cage with bubble-glaze, leaving the top and the side with the door free. Use clothes peg/pins to hold bubble glaze in place. Sit cage on Styrofoam base, and then cut a section of bubble glaze to pin to the top of the side with the door, creating a flap that you can lift to gain access to the cage. This can be pegged/pinned the same way at the bottom using just 2 clothes pegs for efficiency. Line the bottom of cage (on top of reptile heat pad) with paper towel. Hang three fluorescent lights over the cage about six inches above (15 Cms.) the top of the cage. It s a good idea to have these on a mounting that you can raise or lower by pulling a cord. This makes it easy to spray inside the cage from the top without getting an electrical shock while you do it! Use two Grow-Lux (full-spectrum, grow lights) fluorescent tubes and one regular fluorescent tube. This combination is relatively cool, and as close as you ll get to natural sunshine inside the house. Using all three fluorescent lights is really only necessary when pairing and to stimulate the females to lay eggs. Once you have eggs, just leave a single Grow-Lux tube lit, and turn the other two off to save electricity. Only the one light is needed for larval development. 29 By Nigel Venters

31 I usually use four-foot fluorescent tubes over two Pop-Up cages sitting next to each other as a single unit. The tubes are 1 diameter, 36 watt. Aim for around 14 hours light a day, and use a timer switch. After this, it is just a case of checking for adequate humidity and spraying when you see the paper towelling dry out. Spraying/misting once or twice a day is adequate. Hand feed the males and females for pairing - no need for host-plant to get pairings. For egg laying make sure the host plant is high in the cage. As for host plants, Passiflora caerulea will take lower temperatures, but may become semideciduous, and may look a little sick. Plants will bounce back in the spring. You may want to consider using a small aluminium-framed greenhouse to grow the Passiflora caerulea. Should you wish to breed through the colder winter months, this will be enough protection without heating, to provide a good amount of host plant. Final Notes I do hope you have found these articles useful for your butterfly breeding, regardless of whether you operate a large butterfly exhibit, have a butterfly release business or are an interested hobbyist. By picking out the relevant options within these articles I believe you will find I have covered every aspect required for you be successful in your butterfly breeding! The workshop that follows is open to you all, regardless of your level of ability or interests, and remember that no question is too simple or too complicated for us! The Painted Lady & Longwing Articles Workshop Article This is the first in a series of four articles in this section. It is intended to give an introduction to understanding and identifying the Painted Ladies and Red Admirals from around the world. Workshop Article Article follows with an introduction to understanding and identifying the Longwing butterflies (Heliconid) of the Americas. Article goes into some depth on breeding the butterflies from both these families as they share common breeding requirements. This article covers breeding these butterflies using natural host plants. Workshop Article Article instructs on raising Painted Ladies on artificial diets. The article provides several professional butterfly farmers methods to successfully raise healthy and beautiful butterflies using special diets instead of live host plants. Methods and instructions are 30 By Nigel Venters

32 provided by Melanie McCarthy (The Monarchy Butterfly Farm), Linda Rogers (Timshell Farm), and the late Dean Kirkwood (Kirkwood Butterfly Company). Many thanks to Dean s wife, Pam Kirkwood, for sharing Dean s raising methods with the butterfly world. Since I raise only on live host plant, I thought it best to have these professionals who have perfected the use of artificial diets, provide this information. I am grateful to these contributors for their parts in this chapter, which rounds out the breeding instruction! Acknowledgments Most of the photos in this paper are my own and are Copyright from the Butterfly Boutique. However I am grateful to Mario Ioppolo, Sicily from Sicily for allowing me to use his photograph of Vanessa cardui laying eggs on page 1 of this article, and Theresa Chesmore kindly supplied the photograph of the Painted Lady eggs (two different Painted Lady species) laid on the Malva at the bottom of the photograph on page 13. Thanks to Linda Rogers and Paul Chesterfield, who are my Butterfly Boutique partners for spending endless hours making sense of what I wrote, proof reading and then turning it into an article that is well presented and readable! And always, my thanks to Gracie, my wife, best friend and butterfly buddy in the whole world! Nigel Venters, Argentina, October By Nigel Venters