Common Castor Butterfly Life Cycle

Common Castor (Ariadne merione), also called Castor Butterfly is an unattractive butterfly and that is why I always ignore it. Some days before I decided to photograph it. Below are the images of different stages of the butterfly.

Egg stage

Common castor butterfly lay individual eggs on the back side of the host plant, castor. The round shaped yellow eggs are covered with spines. They lay a large number of eggs per leaf.

Common Castor Butterfly Eggs

Larva Stage

The common castor butterfly larva feed on castor leave. The green colored caterpillar have dorsal longitudinal brown stripe and two dorsal and two lateral rows of short branched-spines. There is a pair of long, straight branched-spines on the head. The caterpillar turns reddish-brown when mature.

Common Castor Butterfly Larvae (Caterpillars)

Mature Caterpillar

Pre-Pupa Caterpillar

Pupa( Chrysalis) Stage

The chrysalis of common castor is pale green and angular in shape. It's expended wing-cases, a dorsal projection and two small cephalic points. It has a length of about 15mm-20mm. As I was observing the pupa in November (a cold month), it took about 20 days in becoming mature.

Common Castor Butterfly Pupa (Chrysalis)

Mature Pupa (Chrysalis)

Adult Stage

Common Castor (Ariadne merione), is a medium size (wingspan 50mm-60mm) butterfly of the family Nymphalidae (The Brush Footed Butterflies). It has an orange color with brown wavy lines. As larvae feed exclusively on Castor,that is way it's called Common Castor Butterfly. The dry season butterfly has a wider wingspan as compare to wet season. Below are the images of dry season common castor butterfly.

Common Castor Butterfly