Methuselah

Last fall my better half bought some painted lady butterfly larvae to help with a 4H demonstration. Shipping turned out to be badly timed, but in any event the caterpillars grew and pupated and came out as butterflies, and mated and laid eggs.

Sometime around 14-Sep ( plus or minus a couple of days) one egg was laid that hatched in the usual way. The life cycle went along the usual way for the next couple of weeks for this one and his/her siblings/cousins, and then they pupated. A little less than 10 days later they started coming out--a second generation of painted lady butterflies. For some reason it is considered unusual to get a second generation out of supply-house larvae, but we got them. Some didn't make it, and several had twisted wings, but the rest were fine. That would be back in the middle of October.

We kept them in a display box, with slices of orange or lime for the butterflies (we'd used thistle and other things for the larvae). They generally live a couple of weeks as butterflies, and one by one they died off.

Except Methuselah, who is still alive and kicking after over two months. He escaped for a couple of days and ran afoul of a defunct spider's web, but seems none the worse for wear. He'd be dead in a couple of minutes if he got outside into the cold, but indoors he seems to be doing fine, sucking down on lime slices and sitting in the sunlight.

UPDATE Methuselah died on the 5'th of January, after living about two months longer than usual for his species.