Caterpillar to Chrysalis

We are excited about this post because we are getting better at recording the steps from caterpillar to butterfly and have figured out how to share it with you.  Yesterday we released another female.  At first, we weren't sure if she was going to make it because she went into her chrysalis while she was kind of small compare to the others that we have seen.  We had two males at the same time and they were big, fat guys when they went into their chrysalis.

Below is the video of her in the fifth and final stage of shedding her skin, this is why she looks green and slimy.  They shed their skin after they have made the top part of their Chrysalis.  This little attachment holds them up while they shed and later holds their chrysalis in place, it is pretty strong. 

http://youtu.be/-AQTKuApgw8

She went into her chrysalis on February 22 and came out a butterfly on March 2.  She ended up falling from the chrysalis attachment (my fault) when the chrysalis was clear, so glad I didn't kill her.  In the first picture you can see her abdomen sticking out of the top which wouldn't happen normally. 

This blog is turning into an education on blogs, posts and videos for both Isabel and I.  Once again we have more videos to share and are having a hard time uploading.  Stay tuned...  We love to hear from you, click on Post Comment to leave an educational or encouraging message.

March 1, 2013 Release

This was a BIG caterpillar!

9:01am

10:12am - already cracked

10:33 am - free at last!

3:26pm - let me out!

going out into the wild.

it's a boy

time to fly!

 

 

 

 

 

 

We released another butterfly today and it was another boy.  This time we posted pictures from the release and pictures of the chrysalis when it was green and before it hatched so that you could see the progression from chrysalis to butterfly. 

My mom took some really cool videos, of the butterfly coming out of the chrysalis, while I was at school.  She let the butterfly hang out in the house, on it's chrysalis shell, until I got back from school.  (Blogger is having video issues right now so we'll have to post them later.)

When we released the butterfly we found another male on the butterfly bush where we released yesterday's butterfly; we think it is probably the same butterfly.

My mom and I love to see the butterflies return and it's awesome when we come outside and see butterflies flying in the garden; it means they are enjoying our garden. 

February 25, 2013 - Monarch Release

Clear Chrysalis

out the next day

Learning to fly

It's a boy!  Two dots on wings near abdomen.

I am people friendly when first born.

Resting on a butterfly bush.

This is our first blog so bare with us as we learn how to do things in this space.  Above are the pictures from the butterfly that we released today.  They are in the order that we took them starting from the point where the chrysalis had gone from green to clear; clear means "I am ready to come out". 

This was our first boy butterfly out of the 6 or so butterflies we have released.  He spent quite a few hours resting before he flew off in the late afternoon.  It was windy today and I think that delayed his departure a bit.  Isabel was able to hold this one in her hand today which she really enjoyed.  Our Monarch project is teaching us a lot about butterflies.  Thanks again to Abuela Piti for buying our first plant and to the New Jersey clan for the butterfly habitat.  We will post our pictures for that later.