A New Butterfly!

Something exciting happened at our house today! For the first time ever, we had an Eastern Black Swallowtail butterfly, that we raised from a caterpillar, hatch! As you may know if you follow this blog, we have been raising Monarch butterflies for a few years now, but this is the first time we raised an Eastern Black Swallowtail. And wow, is it ever pretty! 🙂

The top side of their wings looks different from the bottom side. So the last picture was the top side, and this picture is of one half of the bottom side.

I think it is beautiful! Have you ever seen the chrysalis for an Eastern Black Swallowtail? Here’s what it looks like:

It almost looks like a piece of the stick, doesn’t it? Notice the “string” that is holding the chrysalis to the stick. Pretty cool to think that a caterpillar made that! The next picture shows you what the chrysalis looks like after the butterfly came out.

Can you see that the top part is open now? Check out this really cool picture where you can see down inside the empty chrysalis. 🙂

It’s hard to imagine how a butterfly fit inside there! Wow! Soon it was time to let the new butterfly fly off to his new future. He (I THINK it was a male, but not absolutely sure on that) stayed on my hand for a few minutes and then he moved on to the flowers.

And then he was off and flying! Good-bye, beautiful butterfly! We’re so glad we could be a small part of your life! Safe travels! 🙂

Ahhh, isn’t nature wonderful? 😉