Insect Lore 2 Cups of Caterpillars Basic | 10 Live Baby Painted Lady Caterpillars | Refill for Habitat Kit | Caterpillars and Food Included

I buy these every year for my daughter’s birthday. She really loves watching them grow and transform. They grow fast! They grow and metamorphose in about three weeks. We usually keep them for about a week. I feed them fresh cut oranges and strawberries. We are just about to release the butterflies in our garden.

I have ordered from this company for many years with no problems, but not this time. I ordered several cups of caterpillars for all of the classes in my grade level. Some cups came with 2 caterpillars. The product description states that 5 caterpillars will be included. Some cups came with 4-6, but at least two caterpillars were dead. I opened the package as soon as it arrived as instructed. The cups didn’t come with the cloth on top of the cup. I usually hang the cloth on the net as I don’t have the plastic log holder. I’m very disappointed with the quality of this product this time.

This came in a timely manner and following the steps, had gorgeous butterflies to free in the yard. Highly recommend for every child to experience.

I have always used this cup of caterpillars but this time there were only 2 in the cup and a very very small part of one that apparently dies enroute. The description said 5 caterpillars but it’s quite impossible to return them for a replacement.

They worked out so well, I bought them twice and both times they were great! Firstly, I read don't let the butterflies free in that they can be an invasive species. That's ok, we let them free inside our house! These are friendly butterflies too! My child lifted them up by letting them crawl onto her hands. The caterpillar stage was cute. The chrysalis stage was beautiful and of course the butterflies were lively and wonderful.

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.

My kids always love raising their own butterflies. These kits are great and we haven’t had any caterpillars die on us.

The experience of watching the caterpillar/butterfly metamorphosis is great. However, I purchased a cup of 5 caterpillars as shown all over this item's description, but received only 4. Per the company website for when this situation arises (which makes me think this must happen fairly often if they already have a canned response in the FAQ...) , I have tried messaging and emailing them on 4 separate occasions over the span of a week and have received no response.*Update* It took a week for the company to respond to my 4 contact attempts. The solution to the missing caterpillar is expected to be solved another week after their response.