For this week’s Show and Tell I want to introduce you to our Painted Lady Butterflies.

A few weeks ago we received some caterpillars in the mail!  They were tiny.    They came is this container which had all their food in it. 

I hate to think of the kind of roller coaster ride they had getting here!  We ordered them from Insectlore.com

Of course you could find your own caterpillars in the garden - we have never seen any though.  If you do, I’ve read that you should put them in a jar along with whatever plant you found them on.

We had a lot of fun watching them for a week or so.  I had no idea caterpillars made so much silk! 


Not long after that there were 4 chrysalis hanging down!  Here is a picture of one:


We moved them to a big mesh cage and waited.....

On Monday we went to the store...when we came home there was a butterfly!  We put a flower in there and sprinkled some sugar water around.  It was really exciting to watch the butterfly uncurl it’s proboscis and drink.  My daughter named this one Sweet Love.

Two days later, we could see that the other chrysalides were looking darker.  We knew they would come out soon and kept a close eye on them.  We set them aside to make lunch and when we looked again (5 minutes later) there were two more butterflies!!!! We missed it again!  But it was close enough that one of the butterfly's wings were still curled up.  SugarBean named these two Orange Love and High-O.  Orange Love was very protective of the orange slice we put in the cage.  And High-O likes to go up high.

There is one more.  We would really love to see it come out. 

We will be letting them go soon.  SugarBean plans to put her hand in and is hoping one will get on her finger so she can bring it out and let it go.

Here a few fun butterfly links for you to check out:

All About Painted Lady Butterflies

Life of a Monarch Butterfly

Life of a Monarch Butterfly

Butterflies and Moths

Please visit Canadagirl for more show and tell.