We woke up this morning to find the smaller of our 2 monarch caterpillars in the "J" position, ready to make his chrysalis. Danielle was SO excited!
Around midday the other caterpillar suddenly stopped eating and almost frantically started crawling around the enclosure. He did this for several hours and finally started bothering the caterpillar who was already hanging. Danielle was so upset and worried he was going to hurt the other one or somehow cause it to not form its chrysalis correctly, that we removed him from the enclosure. I kept a small pot of milkweed in the house when I split some a couple weeks ago, so we relocated the caterpillar to that pot. Danielle has been wanting to hold a caterpillar, so she was delighted to do the relocating.
We eventually settled the pot on the island and watched him crawl around. For about an hour he continued to scurry around the plant. Finally, he found a place that must have felt secure and started to make his silk button. I didn't realize they make this using special glands in their mouths. (I thought it came out the other end!) We enjoyed watching him make his button. 
Once he was done, he turned around, crawled down a little, and attached himself to the button. About an hour later he let go of the leaf with his other legs and formed the J position. He'll probably be making his chrysalis around the time we get up in the morning. 
In the meantime, Cat #1 started making his chrysalis in the hour we went outside after dinner to ride bikes. Danielle was disappointed she missed most of it (we came in and got to watch the last little bit) but is hoping she'll get to see the other one form his tomorrow. If all goes well, it should take about 10-14 days for the new butterflies to eclose.
Here is a video Danielle took shortly after we relocated Cat #2 to his new plant.
Also, we noticed today that we can see wings through some of the painted lady chrysalises, so they should be eclosing any day now. (And in the video you can see our lone tadpole. We are a very nature loving household.) :)
1 comment:
AAAAAAAAWESOME PICTURES!!! I'm so glad Danielle got to see such cool parts of the process, I didn't know that about making the silk button with their mouth either.
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