Tuesday, July 07, 2009

Our Amazing Butterflies

Here is a photo journey of our Painted Lady Butterflies!

Arrival Day




Caterpillars eating and eating and eating!









Caterpillars preparing for Pupa Stage!











Pupa (also known as Chrysalis) Stage
Chrysalids moved into Butterfly tent! (Somehow I missed the part in the info pamphlet saying they might shake around in defense to scare off any predator....sure did freak me out!)
Newly hatched and awaiting some dry wings! They did not really flap them like I expected...just seemed to wait it out.

Here is a good shot of the merconium (the blood like stain) that drips out, our info says it is the extra coloring from the wings. Looked a bit like a massacre after all the butterflies were hatched!

You can see one of our friends partaking in a bit of orange!
...and another...
Release day! Sheesh...they did not want to leave! We pretty much had to force all 5 out by tapping gently on the tent sides and shaking them out!
Bye dear friends...and thanks so much for sharing your short beginnings with us!
Josh and I also made our very first lap book about butterflies and I will be sharing the pictures ASAP!

2 comments:

LadySnow said...

I just happened to stumble upon your blog and just had to comment. Our family had painted lady butterflies back in...March..I think. The children had so much fun watching them grow and it was so neat to hear the children explain the stages the butterflies where going through as well. :-)

Shannon said...

We had a ton of fun! I can not believe I waited so long to order the caterpillars (a year).

Thanks for the visit!