For Christmas Emily got a Butterfly Pavilion - a pop-up mesh cylinder complete with post card to mail in for your own Painted Lady larva, aka caterpillars, to hatch your own butterflies at home. At the beginning of the month I filled out the post card and patiently waited for our larva to arrive. Monday night GR brought in the mail and there they were, 10 little caterpillars barely an inch long each. The peanut butter looking goop at the bottom of the "habitat" (jar) is what they eat. And the webbing - silk - is what they spun to help them more easily move around the habitat.
The kids and I have been amazed at how quickly the caterpillars grew and formed their chrysalides. Friday night the kids had a sleepover with Grandma and Grandpa, and most of the caterpillars had migrated to the top of the habitat. By Saturday they had started to form their chrysalides, and by Sunday night they were pretty much done.
The next step is to open the habitat (something we haven't been allowed to do until now), remove a paper disc that the chrysalides are attached to, and pin it to the inside of the pavilion and then wait for the butterflies to emerge. This has been such a great project!
I've been trying to ask Emily how long she wants to keep the butterflies in the pavilion before we let them go - since the temperatures out side are perfect right now for butterflies. She's still working on that concept. The idea that a butterfly doesn't have a life span like that of us humans or even other creatures, is starting to sink in. So we'll see how long they last in the house, before the children are ready to say good-bye and release them into the "wild" of the neighborhood.
5 comments:
Kinda freaky looking, but definitely a good science experiment.
i'm glad that the butterflies get moved to a different container...i was wondering how that many would fare in that little tub.
Julia's cousin had one that actually "hatched - is that the word for this?" right on their back porch... we were there to see it and watch it fly away... so fun, and actually quite liberating.
That's so cool. She'll be ready for 2nd grade when they study the Life Cycle of the Butterfly. I know my class used Monarch butterflies. Brings back memories - how exciting!
So how are they doing? Did you ever let them go?
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