Our caterpillar project.

For her birthday this summer my daughter received painted lady caterpillars from Nature Gifts.com  I was a bit unsure on how this project would play out, but I was so pleased with the results and it was a fun summer project for my whole family. Even baby sis enjoyed watching the butterflies once they emerged from their Chrysalis.

When it came in the mail the caterpillars were in a small container with all the food and nourishment they would need to continue growing. They had already began to spin silk which will eventually be what the larvae or Caterpillar will attach to something to begin its chrysalis. Elle-Girl learned an important life lesson with the caterpillars and that was everything poops, even tiny little caterpillars. She formed an instant attachment with all of them and even gave them names:

Funky Beast, Funky Boy, Girl-Fly, Cowbell and Baby.

After she named them I became even more hesitant on how this would all end. I began plotting out a story of the circle of life and survival just in case her little "friends" as she called them didn't eh hem...make it.

But they surprised me! With in a week they began their journey to the top of the container.

While there they attached themselves to the cloth that covered the lid. And just kinda hung out for awhile. For the chrysalis to appear the caterpillars skin spits open and you'll see a shiny green chrysalis underneath that will soon completely cover the caterpillar. Inside the caterpillar as we know it turns into a liquid and reforms itself into something totally different, a butterfly!

It works really hard to push its way out of the shell and its a messy process. We were surprised one Sunday morning when we woke up to find what looked like spattering of blood and droppings around the inside of the cage. Now, it didn't look like someone had been murdered or anything, it looked a bit more like bird droppings. That was called meconium. Its left over color and unneeded tissue from inside the shell. When a butterfly emerges it must pump its wings to get get blood flowing into the veins in the wings with in a couple of hours the wings will be full size and hardened and the butterfly will be ready to fly. We were able to observe a couple of the first ones to emerge. We also noticed their color on their wings gets brighter and more brilliant as time passes. Once we had come home from church almost all of the other butterflies had "been born" as Elle-Girl put it. By the next day the others joined them. After they all emerge you can feed them sugar water in a small dish, or they also love fresh fruit.

I had a grand idea of throwing a butterfly release celebration and really talking up how they will go out and find a nice little home in the trees and start their own little family and grow to be big beautiful butterflies (leaving out the whole 2 week life span part) However, as nature would have it the butterflies began to mate with each other rather quickly.

Elle-Girl was the first to notice:

"Funky Beast and Funky Boy are stuck together Mommy! They stuck on their bottoms."

"WHAAAAT?"

And sure enough. That is exactly what happened. They were mating. David and knew that we shouldn't wait to throw that weekend butterfly release party and instead put dinner on hold, explained a very brief over view on how the butterflies are ready to start their own family, and to lay eggs with little caterpillars inside. And how we needed to release them....now!

We took them on out the deck, unzipped the cage and almost instantly the butterflies flew off to their new destinations.

There were two that stuck around (no pun intended) For a few more hours before also flying off into the near by ever greens. The booklet that came with the kit mentioned that it is possible that the butterflies will continue to revisit their point of release. We found that to be true. Elle-Girl would delight whenever she would see Funky Beast or Cowbell return to the porch. She even has left their cage on the table just in case they want to come back to it.

I was very pleased with this project and we are now looking into other kits such as growing our own tadpoles or my favorite idea the Venus fly trap which is literally plants that open up and eat bugs! Awesome!

UPDATE: We ended this project in the last few weeks of July. Just this morning while outside two painted ladies were flying around the outside cage that Elle-Girl left out for them. The off spring of Funky Beast and Funky Boy perhaps???