So we found this attached to some leafy greens. No idea who this will become, if the pupa’s even still viable. But it’s very pretty, pearlescent green with, I kid you not, metallic gold highlights.
Looks a bit like a Painted Lady? They eat thistles, so not considered a pest by anyone but Eeyore.
The shape’s about right and the shiny’s right, the colour’s a little unusual, but they do vary. It’s almost certainly a Vanessa sp. anyway.
It does indeed look like a Painted Lady pupa, and IMO you should quickly register the copyright for your images: they are the far, far better than any other pictures currently online.
The websites I looked at said the chrysalis stage only lasts 10 days for painted Lady butterflies, so I was checking daily on the chrysalis in the bush I had moved it to. Yesterday I forgot, but late at night I remembered and went out with a flashlight. The shriveled greens it had been attached to had partially obscured it, but it looked smaller and darker in the glare of my light. “Maybe the inhabitant died,” I thought, but when I moved it into full view I could see it had burst open from the inside, and only a papery husk remained.
The chrysalis had been subjected to who knows what insults while the greens were harvested, shipped, sold in the grocery store, and washed in hot water at our kitchen sink, so I am surprised and pleased the patient survived.
I have not seen our little Painted lady around, but at least he or she got to fly.
