Kristin's Butterfly Adventure

Butterfly Magic

Kristin received a butterfly kit for Easter. We mailed off our certificate a few weeks ago, and on April 25th, the caterpillars arrived. They were about 3/4 of an inch long, and not very big around. They came in this nice cup which will feed them for the 7 - 10 days that they will be in this stage. We literally watched them grow from 3/4" and fatten up to well over 2"--and then they all crawled to the top of the cup, and within 12 hours of each other, curled up and formed it's cocoon, and entered the pupa stage or resting period. The chrysalis turned iridescent and we can see some of the changes. The first one to cocoon has a wing forming.(looking like a clock, it's about 4:00) Pretty amazing. We took them from the cup tonight, and put them in their 'butterfly habitat' which is where they will hatch, and after a few days we will release them. Check back, as we will update pictures on this post. This pupa stage will last another 7-10 days. We are on day 3 of this stage. We had to wait for their chrysalis to harden before we could move them. Here is Kristin during the transfer!




UPDATE Friday May 9th--We were in the kitchen, clearing up from breakfast, when Kristin called us--one of the cocoons was shaking like crazy. We watched for over 20 minutes while it shook, struggled & wiggled. We thought for sure it was going to crack open. No such luck. Ryan thought maybe it was dancing, so turned the stereo off....it stopped. We laughed!! He turned it back on, and it jiggled for a moment, then has been still since. We can only figure that it was undergoing something at that time that made it shake and wiggle. We will keep you posted!


**For those of you who asked about where we got this....we got it at Walmart, although ours is out. It was around 20.00, plus another 6.00 for our caterpillars. It has been fun though. I would be happy to share our habitat so that the only cost to you would be the caterpillars.