Soggy Bottom Ranch
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Has anyone on here ever watched the life cycle of a monarch butterfly? Someone on another forum I frequent gave me the idea for this, and I went out an collected monarchs in the caterpillar stage from my own front yard. They live on milkweed plants, and as I understand, monarch populations are declining. I thought it would be interesting to watch the process for myself. I found all caterpillars, and by accident one little egg on some plant I had picked specifically for feeding. All of them went into chrysalis fairly quickly, except the one that was an egg, it was pretty tiny, and is still in caterpillar stage.
So far, 4 butterflies have emerged. They are supposed to hang from their chrysalis to dry and unfold their wings, and two of the four did not do this, their wings never unfolded the way they should. We released 2 full grown butterflies on friday, 2 more emerged today, and 2 more are ready to emerge from their chrysalis on monday so we'll be releasing 4 adults on monday! I have 5 more still in chrysalis stage that should be emerging over the next 3-4 days.
Monarch Butterflies.
This is one of the adults hanging after drying and unfolding it's wings. There is a caterpiller in chrysalis form in the back (green), and 4 grey chrysalis where adults have already emerged from.
It was close to sunset, and one of my lens limitations is slow autofocus in reduced lighting, so by the time it focused, the little guy was gone, and I got Dave's hand. But, blurry or not, he's off into the big wide world.........and the big oak woods!
So far, 4 butterflies have emerged. They are supposed to hang from their chrysalis to dry and unfold their wings, and two of the four did not do this, their wings never unfolded the way they should. We released 2 full grown butterflies on friday, 2 more emerged today, and 2 more are ready to emerge from their chrysalis on monday so we'll be releasing 4 adults on monday! I have 5 more still in chrysalis stage that should be emerging over the next 3-4 days.
Monarch Butterflies.
This is one of the adults hanging after drying and unfolding it's wings. There is a caterpiller in chrysalis form in the back (green), and 4 grey chrysalis where adults have already emerged from.
It was close to sunset, and one of my lens limitations is slow autofocus in reduced lighting, so by the time it focused, the little guy was gone, and I got Dave's hand. But, blurry or not, he's off into the big wide world.........and the big oak woods!