Jun. 1, 2006
It's a luna moth!
Exciting things are happening here today. When we got up this morning one of our caterpillars, which had made a cocoon about two weeks ago, had emerged a beautiful, luna moth! I think I was more excited than the kids.
We have managed to raise a caterpillar from an egg, fed it as it grew as a caterpillar, patiently waited on the cocoon and now we were rewarded with the moth.
We decided to set it free. Emeline let it go this morning.
Some history: A while ago, a luna moth was flying around. We caught it and put it in a bug box for a while. When we let it go we discovered it had laid eggs. We kept them and they hatched into the smallest green caterpillars we had ever seen. We read on the internet what to feed them and watched them grow.
This is one of the first photos of the caterpillar.It is not the black one but the small, green one on the leaf at the bottom left of the photo.
Here they are a few leaves later. They liked sweetgum tree leaves. They grew pretty big.
And today. Now the girls are putting together a book of drawings and writings about our experiences with the moth and caterpilars. It was so much fun and rewarding.
Comments
Jun. 1, 2006 - Such sweet pictures!
Posted by Jaybird
The girls look so happy! Very cool science!
Jun. 1, 2006 - Untitled Comment
Posted by Juldos
So fun!!! I would have been so excited too.
God's creation is so beautiful.
Thanks for sharing!
Julie D.
Jun. 1, 2006 - Untitled Comment
Posted by nsremom
I love this post. It's really a poster for what homeschooling is about. Families coming together to wonder at Gods creation....study together, research together....Plus, your daughter is so cute!!!
Jun. 2, 2006 - Untitled Comment
Posted by mamaclsn
Yor kids will remember this whole experience forever...and will be telling your grandchildren, if you don't tell them first! How blessed we are to experience life with our kids. all kinds of life! i've never seen a luna moth other than in books. The're beautiful ... and BIG!
Jun. 5, 2006 - WOW!
Posted by dawilli
That is so cool!
Great pics too, what a fun experience! I have some friends who always go monarch caterpiller hunting and keep several (like 10 or 12!) of them hanging in their crysalis (I probably didn't spell that right...) taped up under their mantel until the monarchs emerge... we now have a bunch of milkweed growing out back and may try to find some caterpillars ourselves this year... we'll see...
have a good one,
ali
Jun. 17, 2006 - Untitled Comment
Posted by lindafay
Is there such a thing as Moth Envy? I think I have it!
warmly,
linda
