Metamorphosis! What an Amazing process!

Decided to dedicate one whole post to the progression of our Painted Lady Caterpillars.  Our Larva arrived on Thursday September 15th.

September 19th I decide that I want to give the caterpillars a little more freedom.

This little guy whom I shall call Hiccup was the first to crawl out of the cup.
He is the smallest by far out of the group!

This guy on the edge of the cup is the 2nd one to venture out of the cup.
He and Hiccup are still the only 2 that have ventured out, so far!

I thought that our 2nd guy was possibly thinking about
going to the next stage here!

#2 here has been lovin' the mallow or Hollyhock seedling that I placed in the butterfly enclosure.  I don't think that there's going to be anything left for the remaining 4 still in the cup, should they decide to venture out as well.  I wanted a more natural environment for them to be able to roam about in and to pupate in versus the paper towel at the top of the cup they came in.  I stole these mallow plant seedlings from my mothers garden.  Painted Lady butterflies, Females that is lay their eggs on mallow plants and they are said to do so 5-7 days after they have emerged from their chrysalis.

They're geting bigger.  It won't be too much longer till we have pupas!

September 22-23. 2011

This is the first one to hang upside down.  A pupa is soon to come!

2 out the 6 are preparing to go into pupa stage!

The first caterpillar to hang himself upside down has been hanging that way since late last night and this morning he still hasn't molted his skin yet!  Wonder how long the upside down hanging will last before molting will begin?

This is what I found this afternoon on 9-23-11.  I was a little disappointed,
because I had been hoping to be able to catch him molting for the last time.

This is the skin molted from the first caterpillar
that moved into the pupa stage

Okay it's Saturday night and I'm staying up much later than I should AGAIN! Only to find out that our directionally impaired caterpillar who had attached himself to the BOTTOM of the butterfly enclosure to have fallen off the net and was wriggling out of his skin WHILE at the BOTTOM!!! I'm freaking out internally-"what do I do now! I can't leave him at the bottom!" So thank you internet -googled and found out that I could place him on a soft tissue at the bottom OR attempt to tie a piece of thread to his bottom and hang him back up!!! Now mind you I find this process of Metamorphosis very cool but I get a little creeped out by buggy kinds of things especially touching buggy types of things. But said to myself "He's not supposed to being on his side. He's supposed to be hanging upside down!" So here goes I did it-I tied a thread to his bottom and hung him in a mallow plant I have sitting on my counter. okay now just need the adrenaline to get out of my system and maybe I can get to sleep now!!!

September 29th: Our last caterpillar is on his way to pupahood.  He or she has been named Hiccupillar.  He was the tiniest caterpillar when when they all arrived and he is the only one that has done the largest portion of his eating at fresh mallow plant leaves.  So glad that he/she has made it this far.  I honestly did not think that he/she was going to survive because he was so small and often seemed more interested in adventuring than eating.

It won't be too long now!  Can you see the tinge of orange under the chrysalis?

October 1st our first butterfly has emerged from its chrysalis.  Affectionately named #2

You can see this guy using his proboscis to drink the juice from the orange.

The middle Chrysalis you can start to see the wing color.  The larger looking chrysalis on the right is Hiccupillar.

Painted ladies have a beautiful pattern on the underside of their wings.  The eye spots have a beautiful tinge of blue.

A Sad Story

On the evening of October 3rd Directionally Impaired Piller started wiggling.  Me: "Yea, I'm going to get witness him emerge from the chrysalis as a butterfly.  Not exactly, he was wiggling like crazy and then he stopped then started again, but he just wasn't popping out.  I kept peeking in on him wondering when he was going to come out and wondering why it seemed to be taking so long.  Then I noticed that there was a slight tear on the back of the chrysalis not usually the side that the butterfly exits so I started to panic inside, AGAIN!  So, I decided to pull out the bamboo stick that I had attached him to in order to  get a better look at what was happening.  Sure enough there was a tear on the backside.  Something inside prompted me to assist in his escape.  You can see what he looked like after assisting him in his escape below.  He was a mess!  His antennae didn't extend outward and looked mangled.  In the end he was not able to extend his wings fully.  Now I was worried that maybe I shouldn't have helped him, but from another web sight I had read it's very likely that if I hadn't assisted he probably would have eventually died inside the chrysalis.  Now he gets a few days in the fresh air before he dies because of his disabilities.  I was worried that he would be already dead by now because he hadn't zipped up his proboscis and that is something that a butterfly must also do very soon after escaping the chrysalis.  (Important so that they can drink nectar) But check out what he is able to do further down this post.

The Release
We released the four butterflies that were able to fly Today October 4th, 2011

Directionally Impaired Pillar is Drinking!!!

Directionally Impaired Pillar drinking orange juice drops off my hand after dripping some on his proboscis which appears to have helped him to connect the two separated pieces of his proboscis!!!