Our kids, like all kids I am sure, have an obsession with bugs. So Jon and I got them a butterfly hatching kit thing for Christmas. We ordered the caterpillars on line and they looked like this when they arrived.
Don't worry, if you can't really see anything, there is barely anything to see. They were so tiny. Just little specks. We didn't think all five were even moving the first couple days. But they quickly doubled, tripled, quadrupled their size. They seriously got huge. And their container got disgusting.
The kids were starting to lose interest because it was taking so long for them to become butterflies. Haha. But they finally decided it was time to turn upside down and start the transformation. You can see one was a little late. It took him about two extra days before he started his cocoon process. But you can also get an idea of how big they were before they turned to butterflies. I'm fairly sure they are not this big in nature.
After they were in their cocoon like this for a week, we put them into their butterfly net home. Jon did it because I was too squeamish. The container seriously grossed me out. Glad the hubs will take one for the team :)
There are the cocoons dangling all gross like. Don't tell my kids I think it's gross. I tell them it's way cool.
Two fell off so they had to rest on the bottom.
It felt like it took forever (I think ten days or more) but we finally have butterflies! So far, only four have....hatched?....is that the proper term? The kids are stoked. We have soaked paper towels in sugar water for them to eat but plan to get some flowers to make it prettier soon.
2 comments:
That's awesome!
And I hope it's warm for you when you release them...or they may have a tragic awakening to nature like ours did:)
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