Hi! This is guest blogger Aelsa again!

Last year at our family Christmas gathering, my brothers and I received a kit for raising butterflies as a gift.  Earlier this month, we received our larvae in the mail.  Last week they were chrysalids, hard and upside-down in our cups.  We took them out and pinned them to the netting on the side of our "Butterfly Pavilion".  Today we have 2 butterflies and more on the way!

The scientific name is Vannessa Cardui L. and the common name is The Painted Lady Butterfly (the given names are; Monica, Mark, and the others I don't know yet).  When they emerge, red liquid drips like blood from them and their chrysalid.  But it's not blood.  It's meconium, leftover dye and tissue from the butterfly's formation!

This type of butterfly has 10,000 eyes!  God's creation is wonderful!  He is giving me and my brothers an up-front perspective of his glory.  I think I'll like looking at one of his wonderful, colorful, flying creatures; the butterfly.

from Genisis 1:

24 Then God said, “Let the earth bring forth the living creature according to its kind: cattle and creeping thing and beast of the earth, each according to its kind”; and it was so. 25 And God made the beast of the earth according to its kind, cattle according to its kind, and everything that creeps on the earth according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.
26 Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” 

They were a Christmas gift, but because we wanted to release them into outdoor temperatures that wouldn't freeze dry their tissue-thin wings, we had to wait until we got back from Africa to have them delivered to us.

So we are now honored to be able to bestow our care and affections upon these little creepy crawlies.  They aren't that endearing, however.  In fact, while reputable reports indicate that these leggy worms will morph into beautifully plain little painted ladies in a few weeks' time, I might have serious doubts if I weren't convinced of the veracity of the matter.

When they arrived in the mail, the caterpillars were practically catatonic.  The information assured me that this was normal, and that they would eventually start to move around.  It assured me that the nutritious gel in the bottom of the cup would keep them well-nourished until they were all safely ensconsed in their cocoons, and it warned me not to lift the lid until then, lest I destroy their little sterile environment.

The information encouraged me to notice the "frass", the little droppings that they leave behind.  However, it didn't say anything about the disembodied caterpillar parts that I might discover.

Yes, that's right, and the effects of this spontaneous disintegration can be observed in the photo above.  It truly looks as though one of the caterpillars simply fell apart!

This seemed like an awfully extreme reaction to the stress of going through the mail and ending up in our house, but what else might I imagine?  I couldn't bring myself to believe that these lethargic legged worms might suddenly turn viciously carnivorous on each other.

Then I read in a simple encyclopedia entry:  caterpillars molt.  They get fat, and instead of getting stretch marks, they prefer to split open and crawl out.  As revolting as that sounds, this reminder came as a great relief to me.

You see, while I'm not particularly attracted to these new dependents of ours, I can't help but care about what happens to them while they're under our care.

I'll keep you posted on their transformative progress. 

from Philippians 3:

20 For our citizenship is in heaven, from which we also eagerly wait for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, 21 who will transform our lowly body that it may be conformed to His glorious body, according to the working by which He is able even to subdue all things to Himself.