What to do if monarch chrysalis falls

Sometimes it happens - the "cremaster", or hook that the monarch caterpillar embeds into the silk pad it weaves when it is about to pupate, gets detached. Very rarely does this happen naturally. In fact, I have only seen it happen once over the years I have been a "monarch caterpillar rancher". But when I raise caterpillars inside during the summer to avoid parasitic infection from the tachinid fly, I detach the chrysalis from the lid of the aquarium I use to raise them in to hang them outside, and sometimes the cremaster detaches from the silk pad when I do this.

There are a few things you can do when this happens.

1. Use some glue to stick the cremaster to something. I have read about this but never tried it.
2. Leave the chrysalis on its side in a container and provide something for the butterfly to climb on when it "ecloses" (hatches).
   
   It's a surprise to learn, but there are no adverse effects from a chrysalis lying on its side. Everyone, including me at one time, thought they had to hang "as nature intended". But actually that is not so. However, as soon as the butterfly ecloses it will instinctively search for something to climb up as it is absolutely imperative that its wings hang so they can be filled with fluid and dry and shape properly hanging down.
   
   So you need to provide several sticks so that the caterpillar can find and climb one, or you can just have paper towels that cover the bottom of the container and extend up the sides of the container for something like 6 inches (15 cm). I have used this method on many occasions, and believe it or not the butterfly will crawl up the paper towel extending up the side walls and successfully extend its wings and dry them.
3. Now this is where it gets interesting and is something that happened to me by pure chance recently.
   
   I had a chrysalis that I was removing from the lid of the aquarium, and the cremestar became detached. I placed the chrysalis on a cloth that was on the counter while I went to get some string and scissors, and when I came to pick up the chrysalis the cremestar had become attached to the fiber loops of the cloth and I couldn't detach it!
   
   I just cut a square of cloth around the chrysalis and tied it up outside. Everything turned out fine and a couple of weeks later the butterfly eclosed successfully.
   
   So today I thought I'd give it another shot with a new chrysalis that had become detached, and sure enough the cremestar attached immediately to the cloth when I simply touched the cloth against the cremestar.
   
   The cloth, by the way, is a microfiber cloth that I purchased from Costco. Here's a link to something that looks exactly the same at Amazon: Microfiber Cleaning Cloth

Check out the photos below

What to do if a monarch chrysalis falls
Just touch the "cremaster" to a piece of microfiber cloth

A Happy Ending!
This is how you save a monarch chrysalis
that becomes detached from the silk pad

These are the cloths I use

Microfiber cloth