Nature Study Club Post 5

On Friday we had our fifth nature study club, inside our house!! That was the morning we discovered our Monarch butterfly had come out of her chrysalis! The day before the chrysalis looked like this....As you can see, the chrysalis is now looking clear and we can see the butterfly's wings through it! We knew it wouldn't be long before she would be coming out... we had no idea just how fast that was going to happened.

Early the next morning she was out.. DH did not notice anything unusual so this must have happened between 7 - 8 am. I was up at 8 but did not go into the living room, where we had the habitat, A8 on the other hand went straight to it and that's when she saw this...We spent the WHOLE morning just looking at her... taking lots of pics! A8 was convinced she was a girl ( we later found out she was not!) so she called her Crissy!

She was so beautiful! She had no problems letting us hold her. She did not fly or eat at anytime. Later in the day she started to flex her wingsThat's when we noticed she was actually a he.. ha ha!!! Yep, those two black dots at the end of the wings means Crissy is a male butterfly.. so he is Chris after all...

After he started to flex his wings we knew it was time to let him go... we have birds in our house and we were concerned that he would fly right into the cage and the birds, not knowing any better would have him for a snack :)

We went outside when it was nice and warm. He flew into a bush and came right back to A8's hair.. A8 took it as a sign that he wanted to come back to us.. noooo... I told her, he just needs more practice.. the second time he flew even higher to one of the trees in the backyard... from there he kept going into the nursery. He got better and better at it.

From what we've learned about Monarch butterflies, he will be migrating to Mexico and then come back in the spring to mate and then die.Thank you Chris caterpillar and Chris butterfly for sharing your complete metamorphosis with us! Thank you Zoology 1 lesson 14 for all the info we needed... We cannot wait to see Toni the caterpillar as a beautiful Toni butterfly in the spring, since it's pretty obvious she will be overwintering.... You are next!