In my last entry I shared with you all about the growth of our caterpillars and their final molt as they shed their skin for the last time and formed their pupa's. Well now they are just about ready to emerge!
Do you know how to tell when your caterpillar turned butterfly is ready to break out of its pupa? The pupa will turn clear and you will actually be able to see the newly formed butterfly inside the pupa! Look really closely at the photo above. Can you see some of the colors on it's wings?
It's hard to believe that just 10 days ago this pupa was completely black and there was no way to see inside of it.
Our caterpillar has made a complete metamorphosis or change and has now emerged as a beautiful Painted Lady :) After 3 or 4 pushes it has freed itself from its pupa. When a butterfly first emerges its wings are really wet and sort of crumpled, and it cannot fly. It dangles from its pupa and for the next couple of hours it will slowly flap its wings open and closed.
Do you know why it spends so much time flapping its wings? When a butterfly emerges its body is full of a lot of liquid and the pumping action gets that liquid moving into the veins of its crumpled wings. Each time it opens and closes its wings more of the liquid fills the veins and makes them stronger and bigger! Soon this butterfly will be ready to fly.
Here's a close up shot of the pupa that one of our butterflies came out of. It's still intact.
Our butterfly has finished drying, its wings are stronger now and it has actually started to become more colorful as well. They know instinctively how to fly, no one has to teach them how to do it. It's ready to find something sweet to drink :)
Did you see the proboscis on the butterfly (3 photos above) that just emerged from its pupa? You can see it curled up coming out of the butterflies head. The proboscis is the butterflies mouth that acts like a drinking straw. It will use it to suck up water and sweet nectar from flowers. Butterflies actually smell nectar with their antennae!
We have released our butterflies into nature :) They are now off to lay new eggs to start the life cycle all over again. We are definitely looking forward to raising more next year!
