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| Green Monarch Butterfly Chrysalis |
In yesterday's post I talked about how many Monarch Butterfly caterpillars I had this summer and how they kept disappearing. Not all of them did, however. One day I came out to find a caterpillar hanging upside down from a leaf, looking mostly dead. After a day of that, it turned into this beautiful green chrysalis. I looked around on the web and found out that they stay in this stage for a little over two weeks. I'd check on it every few days, but after about two and a half weeks I was getting concerned.
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| Transparent Monarch Butterfly Chrysalis |
Then, a couple of days ago, I found that the chrysalis was semi-transparent and you could see the butterfly's wings through it. This was encouraging, but as I kept checking it, it seemed to darken and no butterfly was emerging. The next day I was away from the house, but when I came home...
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| Monarch Butterfly Chrysalis, post emergence |
The chrysalis was just an empty shell. The Monarch Butterfly had emerged! I started looking all around to see if I could find it.
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| A newly emerged Monarch Butterfly |
After a short hunt, I saw it on a plant. As I got closer it tried to fly away, but it couldn't, so it kind of glided to the ground and sat there, wings shaking a bit. I left it a while and when I looked again it had made it back to a plant and appeared to be sleeping with it's wings folded.
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