butterfly

Two weeks ago, Jay was walking down the driveway doing some yard work when THUMP, before him landed a tiny and very hungry caterpillar.  Get it?  No, this caterpillar was not really that tiny and who knows if it was hungry but it was certainly a stunner and we could tell it was going to be a fine looking butterfly.

We brought her inside and dug up an old aquarium from the basement to be her home.  I googled what she needed to eat but once I identified what kind it was - an eastern tiger swallowtail - I learned that once they start turning brown, that means they're looking to pupate (and not looking to eat).  She was already turning brown within an hour.

They also said that they then walk around until they find a good spot and then they'll just sit there for a while without moving.  By night fall, she had been still for quite some time and when we woke up the next morning, she looked the same except these little strings appeared so her front half was now hanging from the branch.

And when we got home from work/school that day, she looked exactly the same.  But then I looked less than two hours later and she had all of a sudden become a chrysalis.

The chrysalis gradually changed its color over the course of the next couple days until it settled into a final color scheme, perfectly camouflaged for the outdoors.

It looked like this until the middle of this morning, exactly two weeks after we had first brought her in, when Jay noticed a butterfly had emerged!  Her wings started off pretty wilted but as the minutes passed, they grew stronger and stronger. 

We read that it takes them three to four hours before they are ready to fly because their wings need to harden so we left her and ran some errands.  When we returned, Papa and Grammie joined us for our "release party" in the park.  

Some kids came by to check her out and named her Lily Madison since Lena couldn't decide.  It was a perfect day to introduce her back to her world - warm and sunny and just very peaceful.

Here is a video of the release.  It might be a little small or grainy to see here but if you view it on YouTube, you should be able to make out her silhouette as she flew away.

Since she was in the middle of a driveway and thus far from the protection of a branch when she was just an hour of starting to pupate, I'd like to think we may have saved her.  There are a lot of cool things that happen on this earth and it was nice to be able to witness one so closely.  It was also nice to share this with Lena.  I think she may be too young to fully appreciate how amazing the whole caterpillar to butterfly process is but she sure was into the whole thing ... from catch to release.