Six Caterpillars; Five Butterflies

March 31, 2007 by KellyH.

I’m sitting on my front porch, with my laptop, watching a beautiful Swallowtail Butterfly sitting next to me. He (I don’t know how to tell if it’s male or female, so I’m opting for male at this time) was on my hand earlier, but I don’t want him to get too used to me, so I placed him on top of the mesh on the terrarium.

Some of you may remember that last fall my parsley plant developed a ton of caterpillars. We gave some to three different families, and kept the last six for ourselves. I placed the parsley into a terrarium and placed some mesh over the top to keep the birds out. One died before getting to a chrysalis, four became brown chrysalises, and one became a black chrysalis. Three of the brown ones have already hatched, and today the black one hatched. It looks identical to the other three that have hatched, so I’m wondering if it was camouflage because of where it was hanging. This one is “Small Fry.” The first three didn’t get names. Small Fry was the last one to grow, and the last one to become a chrysalis.

I sweated over these babies all winter, worrying th–

Oh, he’s walking around, fluttering… he just flew away!!! What a beautiful sight! About two and a half hours from when I found him, with wings still curled, fresh from the chrysalis.

As I was saying, I sweated over these babies all winter, worrying that any precipitation would get into their terrarium and drown them. The first two emerged when I wasn’t on the look-out. My husband came home from work and said, “So, you’ve got butterflies, huh?” Of course I had to rush out to see them!

By the time I found the third one, a week later, he was also ready to fly. But today, when I found this butterfly, he still had curled wings and a puffy body. I coaxed him onto a stick, and he walked up onto my hand. If I turned my hand to look at him, he would keep walking until his wings were dangling behind him. I eventually moved him to a stick because he tickled so much when he walked on me. At one point I noticed he was dripping. The end of his torso had opened and he was excreting a milky brown liquid. Not much–probably releasing excess fluid from his body.

(It is now four days since I began writing this entry and the last butterfly has emerged. This one is “Buddy.” It must take a great deal of effort to emerge, because they sit so still afterwards. I’m sure he’s processing all the new feelings, sights and sounds he’s experiencing. Perhaps he’s praising God for bringing him this far in his lifespan.)

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