The Butterfly Project - Day 21 The Final Installment

They're free! At least four of them are. We took them outside and released them this afternoon. They had to be coaxed out of the cage but as soon as the open air hit their wings, they were off. I videotaped it and got one of them flying silhouetted against the sky for about half a second. After trying to take still shots and now video of adult butterflies, I'm thinking I should not have complained about the difficulty of taking caterpillar photos.

I tried uploading the video and I don't know what went wrong. I'm pretty computer literate until I hit a glitch and then I'm helpless.

It was a relief to see them flying free. Sadly, our little 'special' guy with no antennae didn't fly away. I had sort of expected that he wouldn't, still it was pitiful to watch him. We got him out but he couldn't lift himself off the grass at all. We finally put him on a leaf and put it up high enough that he wouldn't be stepped on but I expect if I go back and check tomorrow, I will find a dead butterfly. It would have been more humane to just put him out of his misery but I just couldn't do it.

So...... a cute little animal faces inevitable death. I could make it swift and (maybe) painless for him, but instead I choose to let him face the elements and prolonged suffering, because I'm not comfortable with killing him. Yikes, what does that say about me?

We've really had a good time with this little project. The girls had dreaded the day we would release the butterflies, every day asking with rising panic voices ," Do we have to let them go today?!?" But today they were OK with it. They got a kick out of watching them take off.

I got our Butterfly Garden Kit at a local school supply store but there's a website http://www.insectlore.com/ that sells them and other cool stuff.

The Butterfly Project -- Day 19

All five are butterflies now! Sadly, one of them has no antennae and it's obvious that something is wrong with him even before you notice he's missing something. He tries to fly but just flops around landing upside down much of the time and having a hard time uprighting himself. I should probably know this by now, but I wonder... are the antennae what gives them a sense of orientation?

We got really brave and took them out of the cage . Well, first we took the cage in the bathroom and shut the door, just in case any of them got away. We put sugar-water on some flowers and a couple of them drank it. It was very cool to see the long probiscus (tongue) come out and drink the sugar-water.

I was telling my husband about the sick one and he asked how I knew it was a male. Without realizing it, I had been referring to it as 'he' and 'him'. They're all 'him's to me.

We'll probably let them go tomorrow or Saturday so they can live out the rest of their lives naturally. After all, with an average life span of two weeks, they're already middle-aged!

The Butterfly Project - Day 18

We've had two butterflies since yesterday! I've been holding off posting till I got a good picture , but it's actually harder to take a good picture of a butterfly than of a caterpillar, so I'm posting a photo I found on the internet. I promise this is what they look like.

Both the butterflies have orange and black wings that are beautiful when open. The thing is, they aren't open very much, as butterflies rest with the wings folded closed. The undersides of the wings, which we've seen a LOT, are much more muted in color, almost drab really. It makes sense though, when you think about how God created animals with camouflage for protection. At rest on a plant with the bright colors out of sight, these butterflies would be hard to see.

The most interesting thing has been how soft and limp the wings are at first. Apparently it takes several hours for the wings to stiffen as blood is pumped to them, and at first they looked like wet paper, very flimsy.

I hope the other three are just late bloomers. Peanut has this idea that it's a family and that the Momma and Daddy butterflies are now waiting on their children to come out. I gave up trying to tell her -- you just can't reason with 6 year old logic. There are five people in our family after all.

The Butterfly Project Day 10

All the butterflies are now in the chrysalis stage! Sunday morning we found the first chrysalis, and by late afternoon yesterday, all five had changed. I had thought it must be the kind of transformation that is so slow you can' really see it happening, because three of them were found in the morning after having checked on the caterpillars the night before.
The last two were hanging upside down, much like the ones in the previous picture I posted. I checked them before leaving the house at 3:30pm yesterday and couldn't tell they had changed at all. When we got home at 6:00pm they were complete chrysalises.

We transferred them very carefully into the butterfly garden , pinning the paper disk they were attached to, to the netting . To my disgust, when I lifted the paper disc from the top of the cup, along with the chrysalises came the silky webbing they had been spinning all week AND the frass (known around here as caterpillar poop) that was tangled up in the webbing. We were afraid to try to remove the yucky stuff, as this is supposed to be the most delicate stage for the butterfly. I thought we weren't going to have to look at that stuff any more.

Oh well, they say homeschooling isn't for the faint of heart

Here's another rather gross but interesting fact we learned. Inside the chrysalis, the caterpillar dissolves into a liquid "soup of living cells" before reforming into a butterfly. It's like it starts all over from scratch.

Other learning-related stuff:

We observed the chrysalises shaking when we moved them - this is a natural defense against predators.

We also identified the spiracles (breathing holes) on the chrysalis.

I found a Painted Lady Butterfly Life Cycle coloring page on http://www.enchantedlearning.com/ and printed it off for the girls. Of course, Peanut wanted to know if she HAD to use the colors suggested on the page . I told her she had to follow the instructions because, since we were learning about this particular species, it should look like a real Painted Lady butterfly, but that when she was finished I would print her another
to color however she wanted.

While they were coloring we talked about the different stages - larva, pupa, chrysalis, adult butterfly.

The rest of our experience has involved a lot of 'oohing' and 'aahing', with assorted exclamatory whispers like "Cool!" and "Wow!" (For some reason we think we have to whisper when we're observing them up close).

And now we wait. According to the instructions, we should have butterflies by Sunday or Monday.

The Butterfly Project - Day 7

It was exactly a week ago that our caterpillars arrived in the mail. I really wish I had taken a picture of them that first day. I didn't know they were going to grow so much. They may have been 1 cm long at most. In the earlier photo I posted, the biggest one was 3.5 cm. The girls call him The Big Guy.
Today, the only one I can measure is 4.5 cm. I have no idea if it's The Big Guy as they have all grown considerably and the others are curled up some. By the way, can I just say it is impossible to accurately measure a moving caterpillar?

It's also pretty hard to get a good photo . If you click on the photo, you should be able to see more detail. It was exciting to find two of the caterpillars hanging upside down from the top of the cup this morning. This means they'll be in the chrysalis stage soon. The food in the bottom of the cup was smooth and pretty, kind of like caramel icing. After seven days of these hungry guys plowing through it, it's just a mess. And those little balls on the side of the cup? Yep, that would be the food AFTER it's been eaten.

The Butterfly Project

Here's the first photo of our Painted Lady caterpillars. Aren't they cute? The stuff in the bottom of the cup is food by the way. They arrived just like that. They've only been here two days and they're already getting bigger. I'm going to try to post photos throughout the project.

Literally!

We are finally getting around to doing something I've wanted to do with the kids for years. We are going to try our hand at raising butterflies!

As pathetic as this is, the educational/fun potential of such a project has never been enough to motivate me. What it finally took was a realization that if we do this, there could actually be some relevance between my blog title and my blog. I know, that cheapens the whole thing, doesn't it? But not to worry, the kids will never know that it wasn't their need for nature study but her own selfish cyberhobby reasons that drove their mother to the educational supply store in search of a Butterfly Garden kit , or that these same reasons prompted her to mail off the coupon for caterpillars when it usually takes an overdue notice to prompt her to mail off ANYTHING.

And you know, as long as I'm at it, I might as well let the kids get involved. The caterpillars came yesterday. There are five. According to the package they will have all formed chrysalids (?-not sure about the plural) in 7-10 days. We'll then transfer them to a larger container made from netting and in another week or so, we should have Painted Lady butterflies.

The most difficult part for the next few days will be keeping the girls, especially Peanut, from terrorizing the caterpillars. Peanut likes to watch animals that move. She's an impatient child. Caterpillars sometimes go for long periods without moving. If you've ever seen Finding Nemo, and can recall the scene with the dentist's niece and the fish in the bag, you'll understand my concern.

To be continued.....