Kleinmond Charaxes egg to adult

We were sitting on the lawn when suddenly a white barred Charaxes butterfly fluttered noisily into the garden, visited a dog poo, deposited an egg on our tiny red alder tree, and disappeared. On closer inspection I discovered many eggs on the alder, which also is home to one of our million or so newly hatched rain spiderlings. I noticed that the little caterpillars quickly disappear so now there are five in a tub on my desk. Not sure if the spider is responsible for the disappearances; it's a tough world out there.

***

I eventually ended up with only two of the original lot, Wormie the smaller and Worm the larger of the two. Please see notes in the photo titles (hover over the photos) for details of their progress.