The first monarch egg I've found in two years. Such a happy moment! Will he or she hatch and make it to Kindergarten?
Successful hatch! Tiny pupa ate it's egg shell and intends to munch this milkweed!
Colors begin to appear on this baby caterpillar!
Suddenly a very hungry caterpillar is filling out into a fully grown monarch caterpillar! Practice twists and turns, getting ready to head up high and form a chrysalis!
Look at this beautiful caterpillar! Better head to Kindergarten and get the butterfly making tank! Tonight the caterpillar will go into the tank and eventually begin to make a chrysalis by dangling in the shape of the letter J from the tank's mesh rooftop!
The caterpillar made it into a new enclosed home with a nice roof! Any moment now, this hungry caterpillar will be heading up to begin a magical transformation.
The caterpillar has been moving up toward the top of the milkweed, munching more than ever and getting ready for that long snooze in a chrysalis! Did you know that the butterfly wings form on the inside walls of the chrysalis and then attach to the butterfly?! A special tiny camera revealed this just last year! Science and nature are so cool!
Guess who went up high!
And so it begins! Tonight this caterpillar will make a J shape by hanging upside down from the top of the tank. When it's time, it will form a chrysalis in just a better of hours. The chrysalis will be green with little yellowish golden dots along the top. In a few weeks, the chrysalis will become translucent (you can see through it) and we'll be able to view a beautiful monarch before it emerges from the chrysalis.
Last night the caterpillar formed a J shape with it's body. It is very still and seems asleep. This will last for a day until it begins to form a chrysalis.
Imagine if you could go to sleep and wake up in a few weeks able to fly? Well that's what this caterpillar is doing! Chrysalis formed August 18. In two or three weeks a beautiful monarch butterfly will appear! Just in time for Kindergarten!!!
And there she is! Carle is actually Carlita (you can tell by her wings since female monarch butterflies do not have round circles on the black veins in their bottom wings).