Well, that bittersweet day has come and gone once again. Our last Monarch butterfly for this season emerged last week. A beautiful female…and now she is on her way! 🙂
Did you know that the last generation of Monarch butterflies for a season is called the “Methuselah generation”? They are the “super generation” since they are the ones that will migrate all the way to Mexico for the winter. They might fly up to 3,000 miles!! That’s hard to believe! This generation of Monarchs actually live longer than the other generations. They also will not develop reproductively until next spring. In the spring, they will finish developing and mate and then the cycle starts all over again. 🙂
I always enjoy helping the Monarch butterflies to survive while they are with us and to help keep them from becoming extinct. You can also help them by planting milkweed seeds in the fall! Monarchs are amazing and beautiful creatures! I hope you’ve enjoyed your peek into their lives through my blog. 🙂
Hello again! 🙂 Sorry I’ve been away from my blog a lot this summer! It’s good to be back! I think it’s way past time to give you an update on our Monarch butterfly raising this year. It’s been a pretty good year for us. In previous posts, I showed you the teeny tiny Monarch butterfly eggs and then the tiny caterpillars and then how they were growing. We were able to raise and release 25 butterflies inside our home in their private little “hotels”. Yay! Here’s a few pictures of butterflies that emerged from that bunch of caterpillars.
This one is still hanging on the empty chrysalis that it emerged from. Isn’t that amazing?! How did that butterfly fit inside there? Wow, isn’t nature impressive?!
Here is one butterfly being released into the wild.
This one was taking a rest on some Swamp Milkweed.
Here’s another one checking out our orange Coneflowers.
One more picture of a butterfly almost ready to take flight from these Black-eyed Susan flowers.
After the first 25 butterflies were raised and flew off on their own, we started finding new eggs and caterpillars. But it was almost time for us to be gone for most of 2 weeks so I didn’t bring any caterpillars inside since I wouldn’t be home to care for them. BUT they did a great job on their own! 🙂
Our milkweed plants were literally crawling with Monarch caterpillars! Check this out…there are at least 4 of them in this picture!
Here’s some more! They look like little fat sausages, don’t they? 😉
We came home to find their chrysalis all over the place outside our house! Under the edge of the deck…
On the stairs…
On the downspout…
On the siding on our house…can you find 3 in this picture?
And 2 on the handrailing on the deck…
Altogether we found 22 chrysalis! Wow! Now look what is happening… 😉
Yep, the butterflies are starting to emerge! 🙂 So far, 4 of them have emerged and flown away. But wait! There was one more surprise today!! 🙂 While I was outside checking the chrysalis this afternoon, I found this!
Ha! 4 more “little fat sausages”! They were on a milkweed plant that is almost done for this year, so I brought them inside to a “hotel” so I can keep them supplied with fresh milkweed until they go into their chrysalis too. 🙂
Raising and helping to preserve Monarch butterflies is such a fun project for kids AND adults! Maybe you can grow some milkweed plants too and you just might be visited by some beautiful Monarch butterflies! 🙂
Greetings, butterfly lovers! I don’t have much time for blogging today (company is coming!) but I wanted to give you a quick update on the Monarch caterpillars I showed you. Remember these tiny guys?
I took that picture 5 days ago, but here is a picture I took just this morning. Do they look different to you?
Wow! They grow so fast that it’s hard to believe! 🙂 They are still quite little, but are you surprised at how much bigger they are? It’s so fun watching them grow! 🙂 Check back later for more Monarch caterpillar updates!
I’m so excited to tell you that we are now finding Monarch butterfly eggs and caterpillars on our milkweed plants! 🙂 Each year for several years now, I try to help the endangered Monarch caterpillars survive until they turn into butterflies and then I release them back into the wild. It’s sooo interesting and fun! Monarch caterpillars will only eat the milkweed plant, so that is where you will find their eggs and caterpillars. They are just now starting to show up here in our part of Ohio. I currently have 14 teeny tiny caterpillars and they can be pretty sneaky and a bit hard to keep track of since they are so tiny! Here’s a close-up picture of one…notice how small it is in comparison to my thumb and finger.
Now let’s test out your powers of observation. Can you find 4 caterpillars in this picture?
There is one caterpillar on each piece of the milkweed leaves. In case you are having trouble seeing them, here’s a bigger picture.
I bet you found them all now! 🙂 Can you believe how small they are?? Wow! Remember that I said they can be sneaky little guys? Look at this guy I caught escaping from his “hotel”!
Luckily I saw him before he got any farther and I offered him a fresh piece of milkweed and he decided he liked that and crawled aboard. I put him safely back in his hotel. 😉
Stay tuned for more Monarch caterpillar updates coming soon! 🙂
I’m back to tell you some more about what happens when a Monarch caterpillar goes into its chrysalis in the next stage toward becoming a butterfly. When the caterpillar is fully grown, it stops eating and finds a place to hang upside down. It attaches itself to the top of the hotel or a stick if its still in nature. It looks like the letter “J” when it hangs.
This next picture shows 3 different caterpillars in the different stages of going into a chrysalis.
The caterpillars hang in the letter J form for a day or so and then something amazing starts happening. They straighten their bodies out just a little and if you watch very carefully at just the right time, you can see little ripples moving up across their body. They are getting ready to shed their outside layer of “skin”. The “skin” will start to split open down by the head. They are hanging upside down so their head is at the bottom.
The split will get bigger and bigger and you will see more and more of the light green part appear.
Notice how the “skin” is getting all wrinkled up at the top.
Then finally, the bunch of old “skin” they don’t need anymore falls off.
They will wiggle around inside for a little bit and it will get shorter and shorter.
The rings at the top change and the chrysalis becomes smooth.
This is what a finished chrysalis looks like. Notice the gold dots and the gold line. Isn’t it amazing that a caterpillar made that??
The caterpillar is inside the chrysalis now and will be there for around 1 to 2 weeks. You won’t see much happening for a while but a wonderful, amazing transformation is taking place inside! I’ll share another post later of what happens when it’s time for the Monarch butterfly to emerge!
Hello and welcome to another adventure in the life cycle of the Monarch butterfly! Last week we looked at how the Monarch caterpillar changes into its chrysalis. Today we’ll see what happens when it’s time for the butterfly to emerge from the chrysalis. (Hang on until the end of this post for the video!) So just to remind you, here’s what the Monarch butterfly’s chrysalis looks like.
When the time for the butterfly to emerge is getting close, the chrysalis will start to turn a darker color and look black. Notice in this picture that one chrysalis looks green but the one in the background is black.
Here is a closer look.
Did you notice that you can see the butterfly’s wing inside the chrysalis? My pictures aren’t super clear because they are taken looking through the plastic container, but here is a picture taken with a flashlight shining on the chrysalis.
Whoa!! How cool is that?! The chrysalis is now very thin and you can see the butterfly! Next, the chrysalis starts to slowly open. Can you see along the left hand side that the chrysalis is splitting open?
Then the split becomes a little wider. The butterfly is hanging upside down right now and you can start to see its head coming out first.
The butterfly is dropping down a little lower now. You can start to see its legs that are folded up close to its head.
It’s now beginning to slide out of the chrysalis!
Sliding farther out…almost there! The chrysalis will stay attached to the top of the container as the butterfly slides down and out of it.
And it’s out! Look how big it’s body looks right now and how small and folded up it’s wings are.
The butterfly grabs a hold of the empty chrysalis and it will hang right side up now.
As the butterfly hangs on the chrysalis, it will pump fluid into its wings and the wings will begin to expand and the body will become smaller. This next picture was taken 5 minutes after the butterfly emerged or eclosed. Its wings are still wrinkled looking.
Then 10 minutes…it’s wings are looking straighter.
And then here is 15 minutes after emerging.
It takes a couple of hours for the butterfly to finish this process and for it’s wings to expand and dry off. They don’t need to eat right away so it’s good to give them time to dry off and to begin to flex their wings. After a few hours have passed, I carefully open the container and put my hand close to the butterfly and they usually climb onto my finger. And then it’s time to set them free outside.
Here is a video I took of the process of the butterfly emerging from it’s chrysalis. It is so amazing to watch this happen!
It has been such a rewarding experience for me to help these beautiful creatures along in their transformation from a tiny little egg into an amazing gorgeous butterfly! This is my second year of raising and releasing Monarchs and I hope I can continue to do so for many years to come! I hope you have enjoyed coming along with me on this journey! 🙂
You are not going to believe how fast they grow!! Check out this picture that was taken yesterday, August 27, 2020.
Can you say WHOA!! Now they look like fat little sausages! That’s because they eat a LOT of Milkweed leaves! If you find a Monarch caterpillar and you would like to raise it inside your house, just make sure that you have access to lots of Milkweed leaves for them to eat. They will only eat Milkweed leaves.
Would you like to see where we found a bunch of our caterpillars this year? Some were on this Swamp Milkweed plant. Swamp Milkweed plants grow pretty tall and they have pink flowers in the Spring. Can you find 3 caterpillars in this picture?
We found more caterpillars on this Butterfly Milkweed plant. Butterfly Milkweed plants don’t grow as tall as the Swamp Milkweed and they have pretty orange flowers in the Spring. Can you find 3 caterpillars in this picture too? One of them is hiding down low on the right side of the picture. 😉
Sometimes we have found caterpillars on the Common Milkweed plants. This is what it looks like. It’s leaves are much bigger than the other 2 Milkweed plants and it also has pink flowers in the Spring.
When we bring the caterpillars inside our house, they live in a cozy little apartment with a couple of sticks to climb on and Milkweed leaves to eat. We place a damp paper towel on the bottom of the apartment to make it easier to clean up after them every day. They also poop a lot!
We had 4 apartments but we kept finding more caterpillars and eggs so we added more apartments!
We house up to 3 caterpillars in each apartment. They eat and grow and poop to their hearts’ content until one day, it’s time for the next stage in their life cycle. They climb to the top of the apartment or on a stick and then they J-hang. Don’t they look like the letter J hanging there?
Usually about a day after they start to J-hang, they will go into their chrysalis. But that’s a topic for another day! Check back next week when we’ll explore the next phase in their transformation! 🙂
Hi everyone! Hope you are all doing great! We have hatched some Monarch caterpillars from their eggs for the first time and I just have to show you how cute they are! And TINY! You won’t believe how tiny! On Thursday, August 13th, I found my first ever Monarch Butterfly egg on my milkweed plant. I was so excited! I am trying to do my part in saving the Monarch butterflies, so I brought the egg inside to keep it safe from predators. Do you see the little round ball on this piece of a milkweed leaf? That’s the egg!
The next day I found 2 more eggs and brought them inside. Then on Saturday, August 15th, the first egg hatched! It was really hard for me to even find the tiny tiny little caterpillar. See if you can spot him in this picture. Look on the left side for the caterpillar…and on the right side and bottom for two more eggs.
Can you see him? His head is black and he is green right now, almost the same color as the leaf. The next picture I took was on Sunday, August 16th. What do you see? The caterpillar is already growing bigger and is a little easier to see. See all those teeny tiny little black dots on the white paper towel at the bottom of the picture? Can you guess what that is? It’s teeny tiny caterpillar poop!! Isn’t that funny? 😉
Now let’s look at the picture from two days later, Tuesday, August 18th. I put a dime in the picture so you can compare the caterpillar’s size to the size of the dime. Even though he is growing fast, he still looks very little beside the dime, doesn’t he? See the little hole in the leaf? That’s where he ate part of the leaf.
Guess what else happened on Tuesday? The other two eggs hatched! But wow, I had trouble finding them! See if you can spot one of them in this picture. If you found the “big” tiny caterpillar, then look straight up from him to find the brand new caterpillar.
The next two pictures are from today, Friday, August 21st. The new babies are just 3 days old. Aren’t they so cute?! 🙂
The “big” tiny caterpillar is just over one week old. See if you can find all three caterpillars in this next picture.
It is so fun and so interesting watching these Monarch caterpillars hatch and start to grow. I hope you’ve enjoyed seeing just how very very small these caterpillars are when they start out. Stay tuned for more Monarch caterpillar information next week! 🙂
It’s that time of year again when you might find those cool looking yellow and black striped Monarch butterfly caterpillars! We found our first one a couple weeks ago.
I brought the caterpillar inside and gave it it’s own cool apartment to live in. I gave it plenty of fresh milkweed leaves to munch on with a few drops of water on them and a stick for climbing to the top of its apartment . Within just a couple of days, it had gone into its chrysalis.
Then the waiting and watching began. Yesterday I noticed that the chrysalis was turning a darker color so I knew that the time for hatching was getting close. This morning when I got up, this is what I saw:
Hello, world! The new Monarch butterfly has arrived! 🙂
This Monarch butterfly is a girl. After giving her a few hours to plump up her wings and dry off, I took her outside. As soon as I walked outside, she started fluttering excitedly around in her apartment! She was ready to go! I took the lid off, let her crawl up onto my finger and she flew off before I could even get her completely out of the apartment. Good bye, beautiful lady! We wish you well! 🙂
The plight of the Monarch butterfly concerns all of us. Their population is really struggling. Their numbers are down 53% over last year for the ones that winter in Mexico. Those that overwintered in California this last year have decreased by 86%! So we need to try and help them as much as we can. Planting native nectar plants such as the common milkweed, swamp milkweed and butterfly milkweed. And avoid using pesticides. Let’s all help preserve these beautiful creatures!
I found the coolest festival not far from us on Saturday! It was called Pollinators Festival and it took place at Gorman Nature Center near Mansfield, Ohio. Our population of pollinators (butterflies, bees, etc) is dwindling and they need us to help provide the kind of environment they require to flourish. Fran LeMasters, The Butterfly Lady, was there with her live butterfly exhibit and it was so awesome to see! You could walk inside the enclosure and see butterflies up close and personal! And even offer them a drink of watermelon juice from the end of a Q-tip.
Here’s a bunch of butterflies hanging out up on the “ceiling”.
And here’s a beautiful large Swallowtail butterfly. (Sorry, but I forget which kind of swallowtail she said it is.)
There were Native Plants for sale…native to Ohio which are the plants our pollinators need. (I limited myself to buying only 8. Haha!) There are plants that are native to each state and you can find the information about your state online. Google is a great place to start looking.
It was a wonderful warm summer day and I enjoyed just walking around looking for pollinators among the flowers that are growing at the center. Can you spot the Tiger Swallowtail butterfly?
The highlight of the festival for me was buying a few Monarch Butterfly chrysalis so we can watch them hatch into a beautiful Monarch Butterflies one day soon!
I’m glad to say they came with instructions!
So the excitement is building! Today the chrysalis looks a little lighter shade of green in some places and I can begin to see the shape of a wing inside.
I will post the progression as the chrysalis changes and the butterfly emerges. If you get the chance to take your kids to a butterfly exhibit, DO IT! I saw a lot of excited kids AND adults enjoying themselves learning about the life cycle of butterflies. I will post more about the Monarch butterfly’s plight soon and will be asking for your help to save them!
The Kids Niche 