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
Common Castor Butterfly Eggs PictureCommon Castor Butterfly Eggs PictureCommon Castor Butterfly Eggs PictureLarva 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)
Common Castor Butterfly Eggs PictireCommon Castor Butterfly Eggs PictureCommon Castor Butterfly Eggs Picture
Mature Caterpillar
Common Castor Butterfly Larva-Caterpillar Picture
Pre-Pupa Caterpillar
Common Castor Butterfly Larva-Caterpillar PicturePupa( 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)
Common Castor Butterfly Pupa-Chrysalis PictureCommon Castor Butterfly Pupa-Chrysalis Picture
Mature Pupa (Chrysalis)Mature ChrysalisPupa Picture
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
Common Castor Butterfly PictureCommon Castor Butterfly Picture

13 comments:

Unknown said...

Wow well i think it's a lovely butterfly!
I have a huge cocoon from my hoya when I brought them in for the winter, hopefully i havent killed it!

Shelly Cox said...

What an amazing capture to document. Glad you shared it. Those eggs are fascinating looking. Like little stars almost.

Lenora Regan - ShootingWithSlinky.blogspot.com said...

Just lovely! Thanks for sharing.

Osaid said...

I think this is a great photographic effort done by you, congratulations.. .

Unknown said...

Birdy...your patience, photography, and knowledge ...all so amazing!! I've never noticed the eggs or the instars although I do have the butterflies visiting my garden. I like the patterns on the wings. Somewhat dull but I still find them pretty!!

Have a pleasant weekend!

Mark said...

This is a really great series of images, thanks so much.

Anonymous said...

Stunning work ;-)

Sharodindu said...

WoW!...Simply wow!!!

You have successfully captured a great journey and shared it with us...thank you very much. I enjoyed the post like a great treat!

Really great job!!

Happy belated IDD! :)

PC Data Recovery Expert said...

I can't believe you call yourself an amateur. This series is great and very professional looking. I'm so glad I stumbled here. BTW, I think the butterfly is beautiful because of the subtleties in it's wing colors that you captured.

Muhammad khabbab said...

Stunning captures. Birdie, can you kindly help me identifying some butterflies i capture in lahore? you are the only expert i have in mind. some of them are following. thanks.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/28920145@N08/4164092510/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/28920145@N08/4164065048/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/28920145@N08/4163881286/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/28920145@N08/4163994406/

Unknown said...

Thank you so much for value able info

Unknown said...

Thanks for helpful info

Unknown said...

Thank you so much for value able info

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...