We have been learning a lot about butterflies! Today we cleaned and feed all our pets.
The other day we saw something we have never seen before! We saw when they molt! They shed their skin by pushing it off. It was cool. Here is a picture of it!
One of our butterflies, I named him Clandor, his wing– a big part of the tip–was falling off. We thought to release him because it was easier for him to live outside. He could fly almost as well as the others. We don’t know what happened to his wing. We forgot to get a picture of him.
Uncle Josh and Auntie Angie helped us release four butterflies on Monday.
We have two new butterfly girls; one emerged yesterday and one today.
Tuesday night we had one that looked like he would emerge on Wednesday morning, but when I looked at him in the morning he looked brown. Andrea looked at him later and he looked like he was pinched. He died. When Momma cleaned him up last night, he was just liquid. This is the first one we had die in a chrysalis that did not fall when he was forming.
Running Total:
- Lost: 5, one butterfly just before emerging, two caterpillars-one fell while forming chrysalis–and two moldy eggs.
- Butterflies Released: 32
- Soon to be Released: 2 girls
- Roaming: 1
- Little Piggy: 1
- 20 mm caterpillars: 4
- 15 mm caterpillars: 1
- 10mm caterpillars: 2
- 5 mm caterpillars: 5
- 3 mm caterpillars: 10
- Eggs: 3
Caterpillars who are little piggies sound like they are eating potato chips!
Good job, Audrey! You are keeping good and interesting records.
That took a lot of persistant observation! Well done! Photos and all!
Auntie Lorraine
Two eggs have hatched!
One of the butterflies died while trying to emerge from his chrysalis. We are going to clean the cage really good and see if we can figure out what the problem is!