Our seven painted lady caterpillars arrived several weeks ago, in mid-May. I had ordered five, and two extra were tossed in for good measure. Their nutrient dried up while we were away for the music festival provincials, so we transferred the hungry little critters into an empty mayonnaise jar and, after some research, started feeding them fresh young thistle shoots and hollylock leaves. About 10 days after arrival, they started forming chrysalises.
Yesterday morning, as we were preparing to take off for achievement day, there was a yell and everyone came running, gathering around the mayonnaise jar,
We could have kept it for a few days, but without a decent halfway house, it seems kinder to release it, so we put it one of the pots on the deck, where it blended in quite well,
A couple of the other chrysalises were rocking and twirling furiously as they hung from the cheesecloth lid, but no new emerged ladies as of yesterday evening. This morning, however, there were two more, and in the afternoon, another two. A final one to go, so we are doing very well. Below you can see, though not clearly for which I apologize, three ladies (one below and two above) and at least one chrysalis (dangling at the top),
Filed under: Biology, Education, Fun & Games, Natural History, Outdoor Education, Science, Spring
Very cool. Just this afternoon someone was saying that the day care where her 6 year old goes for an afternoon program was doing something similar (though Amber seemed to think the butterflies would be pink). If all day-care was like that …
That’s so neat!