Category: Learning New Things!

Happy Fall!

My shoes broke because the soles came out. I got out some scrap material and hot glued the material unto my shoes. Then I got some yarn for the shoe laces.

I had fun wearing them for two days before the heels starting coming out again.

Last Friday, I took my last chrysalis to Grandma’s house. My Great Grandma got to watch it emerge while we went out to take some pictures. She said that she has not seen one emerge in a long time.

I have one Eastern Black Swallowtail chrysalis that will overwinter.  Adrian has a Brown Hooded Owlet that will overwinter underground in his container.

I released my last Monarch on Monday.  He took a little while to get off my fingers, then he disappeared.  I hope that he is on his way to Mexico or California.

I want to raise some new kinds next year.

Wind up

Momma told me that I had to write a blog that wasn’t about butterflies this time.  So that is exactly what I am doing.  This blog is not about butterflies 🙂

On Friday, we went to the park  and flew kites! Then we went by the lake and played there.  We went home and finished school.

There is more than one way to tell if a Monarch butterfly  is a boy or girl.  The easiest way for most people is to look at the wings.  On each of the male’s bottom wings  is a little dot.

The male’s abdomen is usually thinner than a females.  Also, the males have claspers.  I labeled them so you can see what they are.

I have read that you can not tell on a caterpillar unless you want to cut it open. But, on a monarch chrysalis, there is a way to tell! I hope to share that with you soon.

 

These are all caterpillars that I am raising this year.

1) How many can you name?

2) What do they eat?

3) Extra Credit: Will any of these caterpillars hurt you?  If so, which one(s)?

It has been a very rough year for butterflies. Probably half of them have died in very weird and gross ways. One of them was in its j and then a string dropped out of its head and a little maggot was discovered. I think it was infected by a tachinid fly. Another one was making its chrysalis and stopped half way.  Some have very weird chrysalises. One seemed stuck in its chrysalis and could not emerge properly. More than normal die in their chrysalises. The caterpillars are dying too.

So we are researching what could be wrong. They might have OE, ophryocystis eleckroscirrha.  Some signs of it is a caterpillar’s antennas might be deformed.  Their bodies may look dirty, like the colors ran together.  If butterflies form, they may have mishaped wings, they may stick in their chrysalises and their chrysalises might have “dirty spots in them”.

I am testing my butterflies before releasing them. The first thing I do is check their abdomens to see if their lines are faint, hard to see or messy looking. Then I take a piece of clear tape and touch it to the abdomen of the butterfly. Then I am sticking it to an index card and cutting it out before sticking it to a glass slide. I look at it under a microscope, looking for little dots that are not the scales.

I read to bleach the eggs to get rid of the OE “germs” since baby caterpillars are infected by eating the egg if it is contaminated. After raising and letting them go, we will need to bleach clean the containers and let them sit in the sun before putting new caterpillars in.

I have discovered two butterflies that appear to be sick. I am going to keep them as pets instead of releasing them. The other eight I tested all appear to be healthy and I can release them tonight!
Here are the links I am using to learn from:

What is OE?

Testing for Parasites

How to tape check

Tachinid fly

A few days ago, I let out seven butterflies. We usually let them out first thing in the morning, or when it starts to cool down. We did not on this set because we were slow!  We let them free when it was very warm out.

We were trying an experiment. We were trying to get all my butterflies to come out of their cage all at once. It did not work.

One of my butterflies stayed in its cage and so I decided we could play with this one instead of letting it go right away. When ever I picked it up, Momma would get a few pictures. Then it would fly on to her or her camera, so we got to play with it outside for awhile.

Momma got this picture of me letting the butterfly go.  This is a non edited picture.  Momma just cropped it.  After I let it go, the butterfly flew around my hand and landed on Momma’s camera again. We finally decided it was very tired and so we put it on a flower to eat and rest.

Hi, My name is Z. Mays.

 

Adrian and I were husking corn.  Adrian was peeling them part way and it made me think of Veggie Tales, like the corn that plays a guitar.  So I found our biggest googly eyes and made him a corn guy.

 

 

This year I am raising Monarchs, Eastern Black swallowtails and Painted Lady Butterflies.  I was told Monarchs are starting to disappear, so I am glad to have found as many as I have.

 

Right now I have

• 3 Monarch Butterflies
• 2 Painted Lady Butterflies
• 20 Monarch Chrysalises
• 35 Monarch caterpillars in different stages
• 10 Monarch eggs
• 8 Eastern Black Swallowtail caterpillars in different stages

I am teaching my great friend, Evie, how to raise them too. She has over twenty! This is her first year raising them, and she is doing a good job.

I would like to have over 100 all together. It would be really cool to have 100 chrysalises all at once. It would be so much fun to let 100 butterflies all free at the same time too!  But I don’t have a big enough container for that.

If you find any Monarch eggs, caterpillars or chrysalises, I would happily raise them for you!  Just bring them to Audrey’s Butterfly hotel.