Princess Holly has emerged a beautiful monarch butterfly!
Actually it happened yesterday afternoon. We looked at the cocoon earlier in the day and I commented on how black it was looking. At first I thought perhaps it was rotting and we managed to kill it… but then I realized it was actually clear and the black that I was seeing was actually the black lines on her wings. I tried to take a picture of it.
It’s a little hazy, but if you look closely you can see the orange of the wings on the far right side
Chloe and Josiah went to the pool with our nanny, Alisa, for the afternoon and Tim happened to come home early for the day (while they were still gone). When he got home I commented that he should look in the box and he saw how clear it was. Then about 20 min. later I looked in the box again and… voila!
She was out!
I was a little bummed that Chloe happened to be gone while it happened, but she was still super excited when she saw it later.
Then after supper, we released her!
Getting ready to say goodbye
She was so big! I can’t believe she fit in that cocoon…
Can you see her in the leaves?
Very cool!
A wonderful learning experience all the way around!
That is so exciting!! We were reading up on them yesterday and found it was two weeks they are in the pupae, so we were really thinking she’d be out soon. So beautiful! And such an amazing process!
And, interesting thing – once they are out, their wings fill with fluid, which is why they can fit in such a small cocoon. Her wings were just fine and limp until she got out. Which, of course, is why you don’t touch them when they first get out.