Tuinrooitjie | DeWetsWild

The Garden Acraea is by far the most numerous butterfly in our little garden, and as I type this there’s at least a dozen of them flitting around the plumbago and Cape honeysuckle shrubs in my field of view. This year I’ve paid even more attention than usual to them and been rewarded with a window into their fascinating life cycle.

Two Garden Acraeas mating

In April we started noticing large numbers of caterpillars in their final instar moving around the garden, with some of them even finding safe refuges on the patio furniture and security bars in front of the windows where they could start their metamorphosis.

Garden Acraea caterpillar looking for a place to pupate

It took several months for them to shed their last caterpillar “skin” to reveal the hard chrysalis inside which they were transforming. Sadly some of the pupae dropped from their safe havens, but I could save a few from marauding ants and put them in a jar on my desk where I could keep a close eye on them.

Garden Acraea Pupa

Garden Acraea Pupae

Garden Acraea Pupa

It didn’t take anywhere near as long – only a few weeks – for the adult butterflies to start emerging.

Newly emerged Garden Acraea

Soon their wings were unfurled and they could take flight in the same garden where they started their lives.

One of the pupaes I kept in a jar on my desk taking on the wide world outside

Acraea horta

As its name implies, the Garden Acraea is a commonly seen butterfly of South African gardens, though its natural habitat preference is for woodland and forested areas in which their larval food plants of choice (mainly Wild Peach and Passion Flowers) occurs. Seen throughout the year, though more commonly in spring and summer, they fly low and slow, relying on their foul taste to deter predators. Adults have a wingspan of around 5cm, with females being slightly larger than males. Garden Acraeas are found along the southern Cape coast, through the Eastern Cape, Free State, Kwazulu-Natal and Gauteng to the North-West, Limpopo and Mpumalanga Provinces.