Monday, August 25, 2008 - Monarch Butterfly
Outdoor Challenge #22 is Focus on Insects-Butterflies. This fit in very well with what we are studying.
Our very first butterfly emerged yesterday while we were away. I saw the opaque chrysallis and new that I should make prepreations for it but then forgot about it in the rush of getting ready for church.
When we arrived home, the chrysallis was EMPTY! And the butterfly was nowhere to be seen.
Finally I spotted her on a picture hanging on the wall and we caught her with our net and put her in our butterfly cage with some fresh fruit to feed from for the night. (They cannot drink water because they will drown.)
We named her Boo. It fits her. "Boo" there she was as a caterpillar. BOO there she goes making her chrysallis. BOO there she is hanging on the wall.
Today, we took her outside to observe and sketch and then we let her go. We put her in the fridge for about 10 minutes. The butterfly can only fly when their thorax (middle segmant of their body) is a certain temperature. This cools them down so that they do not fly away right away.
There is no black dot on the wing. This tells us that this butterfly is a female.
Isn't she pretty?!
This is an insect but for the life of us, we could not find the last two legs. Maybe on our next one.
Before we released Boo, we both took some time to sketch her into our nature journal.
Dana made a chrysallis early this morning.
Comments
Tuesday, August 26, 2008 - Wow....what a beautiful butterfly.
Posted by Anonymous
What a great story and the photos are fantastic. The detail the color on the wings is awesome.
Thank you for sharing your nature study,
Barb-Harmony Art Mom
Tuesday, August 26, 2008 - We have a death
Posted by babymakers
in the family. One we were waiting to hatch turned brown... yuck.... If I would of known it was dead I would of let Savannah dissect it.
Thursday, August 28, 2008 - sorry this is off topic
Posted by Suzanne
I saw that you're a friend of Marsha (drewsfamilytx)'s, so I wanted to ask you to pray for her. If you're not sure why, please stop by my blog.
thanks.
