I told you all about about them HERE...
Well, my fancy google research told me that when the chysalides turned from green, to black...like below...
That you would have Monarch Butterflies by noon...
It was a Monday morning and we awoke to this...(click on the picture to enlarge it...you can see right inside and see the Monarch wings!! WOW!
Figures that it was on MONDAY and not on Sunday...
but that's ok...The kids wanted to take them to daycare...
And we did...and while they missed the first emergence of one of them, they heard the rustling and were able to witness the second Monarch coming out of his cocoon!
See the empty cocoons here? (Click to make the pic larger...) Amazing that all that color you see, ie: black, is really the butterfly and the cocoons are clear!
Because Monarchs need Milkweed, we brought them back home again for yet another butterfly release in our backyard garden ~
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Seriously, so pretty...and such a nice addition to our yard.
I felt a little guilty about bringing them inside but then I read a tidbit on the internet that told me that if left in the wild, fewer than 10% of monarch caterpillars will survive to become butterflies. If you bring monarch caterpillars into your house, more than 90% will become beautiful monarch butterflies ...so now I know...
Next year, bring them all inside the butterfly habitat to raise and release!
And the day of the release...who should we discover...but more new friends!
While fun to look at and watch for a bit, I learned that these guys actually hog all the milkweed and can do some real damage in your garden...and in the end...and are not actually butterflies but moths...so we put him back (in a different location of the yard) knowing that he would not form a chrysalis in our care...
Wasn't this fun?
Our love of caterpillars and butterflies has really escalated since our Insect Lore Butterfly Kit - I cannot speak highly enough of this product.
Looking for a gift for the kid that has everything? Seriously...Get them one of these!
1 comments:
You got some great pictures of them Darcie! Who knew that a simple butterfly kit would lead to this?
My kids, Sam especially, are on a bug kick too. We have three jars of caterpillars in the house in various stages of growth - we're going to run out of milkweed at this rate!
One thing I learned is to NOT put the leaves with the eggs on them in with the bigger caterpillars - the eggs get eaten by the voracious caterpillars!
We have three that are about 5-7 days from becoming butterflies - I'm almost as excited as the kids!
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