Butterflies

I've got a one student school here.  Poor Freddie, a teacher's son, will have a lot to put up with over the next 18 years of school.  I've decided to be a little more structured in my approach to exposing him to the world.  Don't worry, nothing too crazy, thanks to Hans.  But there are some things I want this city boy to experience.

When teaching young students I loved learning about the life cycle, and I was always equally amazed to watch the caterpillars transform in my garden.  Unfortunately, no garden here, so I when I saw the butterfly habitat on Woot for a fraction of the cost of Amazon, my main shopping venue, I jumped on the deal.  I quickly ordered a book to help Freddie with understanding the metamorphosis.  He's just about got The Very Hungry Caterpillar memorized, but the concept of the change from caterpillar to butterfly was not evident to him with all the cute food the caterpillar munches on in the story.

Preparing to form chrysalises

Five painted lady caterpillars arrived in the mail, complete with a food supply, and we began observing.  They got big quickly.  And formed a chrysalis within about 7 days.

Pretty amazing to see caterpillars dangling in the morning and by the afternoon there were chrysalises in their places.

The chrysalises form on the top of the container which has a paper liner.  The paper liner is then removed with all chrysalises attached and pinned to the inside of the habitat, just a few inches from the bottom so the butterflies aren't injured when emerging.

All five caterpillars formed cocoons and from all five cocoons came a butterfly only a week later.  Some orange Gatorade on a cotton ball was "nectar" for a few days while the butterflies dried their wings.

Freddie and Charlie released the butterflies in the yard next to our building after a few days.  They begin laying eggs within a week, so it is best to get them outside before then.  We weren't prepared to provide nourishment for another round of caterpillars.

Thankfully Freddie was off and chasing a few of the butterflies and missed a bird making off with one.  That's another lesson.