Cole and Heather found this caterpillar on a milkweed at one of Wayne's fall baseball games. We brought it home, lost it in the car, found it again, and fed it oodles of milkweed leaves until it was ready to make its transformation. Cole watched it every moment that he could, because he wanted to see it molt into its pupa stage. It sheds its skin one last time, and underneath is what we know of as the cacoon. He and Heather were lucky enough to see it happen. it took anout 15 minutes.
After a couple of weeks, the cacoon turns transparent and you can see the butterfly all scrunched up inside the cacoon. That's when you know it will emerge very soon. When we noticed its "transparency" one morning, Cole took it to school, in the hopes that his classmates would be able to see it emerge. Unfortunately, for them, it stayed in the cacoon all day. In the car on the way home, Cole was like a nervous father scolding me anxiously for every little bump our tires hit - and ther are quite a few! Maybe those bumps set thing in motion, because the butterfly emerged while riding in the car. We had to pull over by the mailbox and watch it happen. When we got back to the house, we waited for the wings to dry and straighten and then we let it go outside in the garden.
This is a male. You can tell by the dark spot on one of the veins of the hind wings in the photo below.
Heather, turning into a photographer.
Thanks for the learning experience little butterfly!
No comments:
Post a Comment