Wednesday, October 15, 2014

Butterflies-to-Be



We bought a milkweed plant at the farmer's market on Saturday, complete with three monarch butterfly caterpillars.

The biggest one was hanging in a "J" shape, not moving, and I thought it was ill, so I tried to "help" it. Unbeknownst to me, it was getting ready to pupate and form a chrysalis...which we actually watched (one of the most amazing things to see, truly). That's it on the bottom.

One of my caterpillars died a rather gruesome death: it was parasitized by flies (ewwww....gross!).

The last one is busily eating and getting MUCH bigger, so fingers crossed it turns into a chrysalis too. I'm obsessed with them and check on them every half hour or so. I could sooo easily have become a lepidoperist. Second (or third or fourth, in my case) career?

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