My Very Own Very Hungry Caterpillar

We have been fascinated by Monarch butterflies since moving to Southern California (see first entry January 2010). After reading books about Monarchs we learned that they only lay their eggs on the milkweed plant and that is the only thing their caterpillars will eat. Auntie Shaunmarie and the Crazy Boys gave us a gift certificate to a nursery and we used it to buy the biggest milkweed plant they had. The very afternoon we brought it home a beautiful Monarch butterfly visited and laid her eggs, lots and lots of tiny green eggs.



Suddenly, our milkweed was literally crawling with yellow, white and black caterpillars. Our highest count was 24! They start out very small and eat and eat and eat until they become very fat. Just like one of our favorite books "The Very Hungry Caterpillar" by Eric Carle. The poor milkweed plant looks terrible now but that is its fate.

In this picture you can see three different stages of the caterpillar: the tiny green dot on the upper left of the leaf is an egg, the small green caterpillar and the big fat one.

We named a particularly big one Pudgy and one day we noticed he seemed to be slowing down. Then one morning we couldn't find him. That evening we noticed he had crawled up the side of the house. He began to curl and by the next morning he had spun his chrysalis.

The chrysalis was green but after more research we learned that the chrysalis shell is clear and that the green we saw was actually the pupa inside. As the transformation inside occurred we began to see the faint outline of the butterfly's wings inside.

This morning we knew it was time, we could clearly see the orange, yellow and black wings of his wings. Catherine had to go to school and I had errands to run and by the time I got home, the Monarch was out! His wings were not fully opened and I watched and waited as they slowly opened and closed, getting bigger and bigger. After 30 minutes I went inside and when I came back out the Monarch had flown away.

After breaking free, the wings are not fully open.

The last I saw of Pudgy before he flew away

I spied a beautiful Monarch on the milkweed later this afternoon and I think maybe it was Pudgy - although we'll have to come up with a better name now, more suited to a beautiful Monarch butterfly.

PS - We put another large caterpillar into a small, mesh covered "Critter Cabin" the other day and he has now spun his chrysalis hanging from the top. We named this one George and we'll see if we can capture his breaking free of the chrysalis. Stay tuned.....