St. Louis gardener
Cool Member
Posts: 85
Joined: Fri Jul 24, 2009 2:01 pm
Location: St. Louis, Missouri

It could be either (developed too late in the season or were defective to begin with). I wouldn't be surprised if it was the former, since we had such a hot, dry summer. As I mentioned, we didn't see the first batch of caterpillars on our parsley until mid-August this year. Those were the ones that already emerged from their chrysalises last month. Normally we begin seeing them much, much earlier in the summer, so having caterpillars this late in the season is very unusual, and moreso since they seem to be taking so much longer to make it to larvae stage. We had another 1st stage cat die this morning. He just wasn't making any progress at all, so I knew it was just a matter of time. I noticed one of the 3rd stage fellows took his big green "dump" today (down the side of the cage, thank you very much!) so I'm hoping he sticks soon. We're supposed to get some warmer weather this weekend, so I'm keeping them outside as much as possible. I thought the cooler weather would speed their internal clocks along toward getting into their warm cozy chrysalises for the winter, but maybe warmth is what they need. I'll let you know how the last four do. Thanks for all your encouragement.



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