Insect Lore Cup of Caterpillars Basic – 5 Live Painted Lady Caterpillars with Food – Refill Kit for Butterfly Garden Habitat – STEM Science Activity for Kids & Classrooms

I feel these were on the more expensive side but all but one caterpillar made it all the way through to butterflies we could release, Order early in the season, last year I ordered too late and the caterpillars were full grown already and went into crystallis with a day of getting them. This year I ordered earlier, the caterpillars were so tiny and we got to watch the grow. Make sure to put them in something with a waterproof bottom, it gets a little messy when the butterflies come out of their crystallis. Beautiful butterflies, easy to use!

Do not buy these! There was suppose to 5 caterpillars and we only got 2. When the caterpillars turned up the food was broken in half and laying on top of the caterpillars. At first I thought they were dead but once I moved the food the caterpillars were moving. The two caterpillars we recieved grew at very different rates. The first one grew as you would expect and went into a chrysalis and came out after 12 days and was fine. The second caterpillar didn't chrysalis until 8 days after the first and when it came out of the chrysalis it's wings were not formed correctly and it can not fly. The whole experience has been very sad. We have previously used insect lore but ordered directly from their website and had no issues. If we ever do this again we will never use Amazon and recommend using insect lore directly to others.

My nieces love these. I usually get one of them some of these every year. I always look for the Insect Lore caterpillars because they always arrive in great condition. For the first 12 hours or so, the caterpillars seem sluggish. (I would be sluggish, too, if I had just been shipped over the road for hours to days.) Then they start to rouse themselves and get busy. We love these. The process is wonderful to behold. I've also gotten these as a gift for a housebound elderly person in the family, and it was really a blessing to see how much joy it brought for that person to be able to watch this process right next to their chair all that time.

For the first time, I was disappointed in our caterpillars. I've bought caterpillars from insect lore for about 7 years. This year, only 4 caterpillars became a crysalis...and only 2 hatched...one with damaged wings and wasn't able to fly.

I love buying these every year for my classroom to watch the spring transformation. I have always had all of my caterpillars make it to the butterfly stage. What a special treat for the students to watch and observe this transformation each year.

I will never buy a cup of caterpillars through Amazon again. We have done this every year with my kids and have always ordered from the Insect Lore website, but this time I used Amazon because we wanted the cup quicker to show some friends who were staying with us. This was a big mistake. Every other year all 5 caterpillars have become butterflies and it has been such a fun experience for out kids! This year however when we got the cup, one caterpillar was already dead on arrival. A couple days later another caterpillar that was way smaller then the others on arrival also died. Still 3 were alive and eventually started making their chrysalis. One died before it could form it's chrysalis and fell to the bottom becoming a big pile of goo. 2 of the caterpillars have formed chrysalis and we have moved them to our big net. One of the them looks normal, and one of them is black, so I don't have much hope we will have more then 1 butterfly, and that's even debatable since all of them have died. The cup smells foul now that we have taken the lid off to put in the larger net, so I am wondering if the food was diseased or something.We do this every year and did everything according to the instructions, the only thing different this year was ordering through Amazon. I guess correlation doesn't always mean causation but in this case it's making me only ever want to buy through the Insect Lore website. I'll have to look and see if we still get the guarantee buying through Amazon.

We ordered this 2 years in a row and they caterpillars are always good. This recent batch from May 2025 only 4/5 turned into a chrysalis- the baby caterpillar melted into the food after the first 2-3 days. Overall good, shipped quickly and made for a memorable tradition.

I always order from insect lore and have always had good experiences. Overall, this cup of caterpillars was good and my students enjoyed getting to see the life cycle. I gave 4 stars because the cup came with my caterpillar already dead.