Last year, I watched a female green-veined white laying on wild rocket and collected some of the eggs on several plants. There was also a female small white in the patch, and when the caterpillars were mature enough to identify, I was told they were all small whites. Very strange - I even photographed the green-veined white while she went about her business. ANYWAY, they all pupated within days of each other and began emerging this spring. The first (a female) appeared on 18th April, the second (a male) on 25th April and the third (another female) today, 5th May. Here she is:
And here is her pupal shell, with meconium stains on the mesh:
During the recent storms, I moved the cage to shelter but even so one pupa got detached from where it had fixed itself on the clear plastic front of the cage. I searched for it and found it on the soil in one of the plant pots (the same pots the caterpillars lived in, which I now use for weighing down the cage):
Can one of the experts tell me if it is OK to leave the pupa like this, unattached but relatively sheltered and safe? Will the butterfly be able to emerge normally?
Guy