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

Purchased these for use in my self-contained classroom. They arrived all alive and thriving on eating their 'brown mush' as my students called it! All 5 made it into cocoons and transformed into butterflies! I was surprised as I assumed we may lose one or two! The instructions were clear and helpful, and I already had a little butterfly mesh 'home' for them to be placed in. As you lift the lid to transfer the cocoon's, you do have to be careful not to let any of them fall. Overall, I was very impressed and will be purchasing again!

My grandkid is 4½, and this is the third year we've bought caterpillars. We had 5 healthy bugs, and one (bonus) "slow-poke". All 6 made cocoons. 5 butterflies emerged, and we were a bit concerned about the runt, needing to explain that it might not be alive any more. After we released the first 5, about a half week later #6 emerged and flew away to join its siblings! Very happy with our results - beyond expectations!

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.

Came faster than expected. All the caterpillars made it into their cocoon and so far one butterfly has come out. I do this every year with my preschool class and sometimes we get a few that don't make it but I purchased 4 cups, 20 total, and so far, so good!!

We weren't sure at first, when only I've of them was slightly moving when we got it. Soon enough all 5 were moving around quite a bit. I thought all that food at the bottom was overkill, but these things at a ton of it and it seemed they doubled in size every day My kids from 5 to 16 loved watching their progress. We released them in our front yard and had all the neighbor kids enamored It was a blast learning as a family. I'd definitely do it again!

6 out of 10 caterpillars did not survive and it's been a week and have not received confirmation of replacement from the company via email and could not get a hold of customer service via phone.

The purchase indicated 10 caterpillars, but there were only 7 that seemed to survive and turn into butterflies. It was enjoyable to watch, but a bit disappointing that we did not have 10 develop to maturity to let free.

The caterpillars did great and all turned into live butterflies! I could not remove the paper from the lid with the chrysalises. There was no way to peel it off. I had to keep them attached to the lid.