Adelpha eulalia

Photo Life History: Adelpha eulalia

Habitat:  Mountain Canyons; Desert Hills & Mountains

Host Plants:  Quercus turbinella; Quercus gambellii

Suitable Lab Host Plants: Quercus virginiana; Quercus alba  (Note: This lab host can be especially helpful for those rearing Arizona sisters during the fall months when scrub oaks drop their leaves in October; but white oak leaves remain useable almost through the month of November.)

How to Find Female Butterflies:  Click here.  (A. eulalia females can be quite common during the latter part of their fall flight.  This is usually the best time to locate females in numbers.)

Caring for Live Female Butterflies:  Nectaring techniques

Methods of Female Oviposition:  Open Screen Cages; Expose caged females to filtered sunlight.  Note.  Unfortunately, female arizona sisters are not very cooperative at laying eggs in the lab.  There is a group of us trying to figure this out a little better.

How to Find Eggs: Look on tips of leaves

How to Hatch Eggs:  Keep egg on original leaf; keep relatively humid.

How to Find Caterpillars in the Field: Isolated host plants; perches on tips of leaves.  Sometimes larvae can be difficult to find amongst all the leaves.  Oddly enough, caterpillars have been found near the Santa Rita Lodge; Madera Canyon, Santa Cruz County, Arizona, on very short stems with just a few leaves  protruding out of the main trunks of  large oak trees.  Also, females oviposit towards the top branches of 10 - 15 foot high Quercus gambellii trees at Pine Valley Campground, Washington County, Utah.

Caterpillar setups:  Open terrariums; Open Bucket

Larva to Pupa:  Caterpillar silks to leaf or twig; creates and attaches cremaster; hanging as a J before pupating.

How to Find Pupae in the Field: 

Number of Broods per Year:  1-3 depending upon location.

Overwintering Stage:  Third instar. 

Overwintering Strategies:  Your Own Backyard; Refrigerator

Post-Hibernation Strategies: 

Avoiding Diapause Techniques:  Expose larvae to 24 hours of light; Healthy Host Plant.   To be honest very few who have reared this butterfly have been able to create conditions where larvae do diapause.  From what I know, only COL. Clyde F. Gillette has been able to do this.  He reports that diapausing larvae do not build hibernacula; but crawl off the leaf to overwinter near the trunk of the tree.

Disease Prevention:  Change out host plant and remove frass every five days.

Emergence:  Emergence Container

Field Notes: