We've been in for a bit of a treat this summer with the two caterpillar friends we took in. The first one (sorry I didn't take a picture of the caterpillar) created this magnificent chrysalis:
I didn't know treasures like this even existed in nature! After a couple of weeks (sorry, not a very rigorous scientific method around here--it's lucky I happened to check the jar on the kitchen windowsill one day and see a butterfly because it probably would have starved to death otherwise)
The butterfly that hatched out of this looked like this:
The kids were amazed. Eli didn't even try to smack it--which is his go-to for pretty much all members of the insect class these days.
I think we caught it so newly hatched that it was drying its wings still. We put it on a tree by our porch so it could safely undergo child supervision and still have a chance at survival. It flew away in about 30 minutes.
Next up: We caught this spiky fellow at the kids' grandparents' house. Within a couple of days he dropped off a part of his caterpillar body and made this chrysalis:
Not quite as brilliant as the first one, but not to shabby nonetheless. Fast forward a couple more weeks and Loren discovered that this butterfly had emerged:
I didn't get a very good picture of it, because as soon as the kids took it outside...
it flew! How amazing. I could probably do a quick google search and find out what kind of butterflies these were, and also why they drip pink liquid when they hatch, but for now I'm pretty content with the whole not-so-scientific side of butterfly magic. Thank you butterflies for letting us observe your amazing metamorphosis!