Recently my daughter came across what we thought was a dying butterfly. It was flopping around on the grass, unable to fly. We observed it for a while and figured it looked like a Common Grass Yellow butterfly, although there has been some debate when I uploaded my observation and @firos_ak posted s…

it probably could have used a steady source of warmth, but honestly it was probably old, sick, or both.

I guess there is not much else you can do than providing a food source. Arthropods are usually rather sluggish before they die and don’t have much potential for recovery. If you find a butterfly in that condition then it’s probably already too late.

I agree. I raise butterflies for conservation and I notice that they tend to flop around and maybe have a seizure before passing.

No harm in keeping it alive. Hard to say what was wrong. I looked at your pictures, and the wings did not look particularly worn, but one antenna was bent and one missing the end. Perhaps it had a run in with a car. I’ve seen some of that behaviour with moths that have no heads - they remain alive, …

As an fyi, your butterfly is most certainly not Eurema hecabe, or even Eurema sp. Catopsilia pomona looks like the correct ID. Note the latter genus is much larger than the former, and the wing apex is much more pointed. The lack of black spots peppered on the ventral wings also rule out Eurema.

You don’t say how old your daughter is or if she is especially interested in nature etc, but from a learning perspective, the reality is most insects have a life span that is measured in weeks at the most. Once they start to reach the end of that period, nothing can usually be done to change the in…

Thanks. She is 8 and very interested in nature. That’s the reason I found and joined iNaturalist , so that we could look up the names of the creatures around us. She uses the Seek app. She put up the butterfly after it died along with the rest of her dead butterflies collection :)

Read up more and saw the other suggestions. Have changed the ID to Lemon Emigrant [Catopsilia pomona] which looks more appropriate to me now. Have seen a couple more examples since, though still confusing am learning to tell them apart! Thanks.

Rescuing dying butterflies?

Nature Talk

surabhi_srivastava_gaur September 4, 2021, 4:26pm 13

Thank you!

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Rescuing dying butterflies?

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