Our butterflies were finally released the other day. It was around 60, maybe 65 degrees. I’d been ready to let them free for a few days and they seemed more ready too. We missed our opportunity on Saturday when it was so nice, and then Sunday got cold and windy and more of the same on Monday. I knew I’d think about whether it was too cold for them, too windy, enough food, would they be eaten and then, while on a walk on Tuesday, I saw another butterfly out and thought, “That’s it! My sign. It’s okay for me to release them.” (Unless, I didn’t think till just now, that lone butterfly was also released by someone who, like me, purchased caterpillars on Amazon. Hm.)
The cool thing about it is that they really hang out on your fingers. It seems impossible to get a butterfly in the wild to do that, but you can practically hold these guys. They’re not eager to take off. But then they do, and off they go. I’d say that it’s well worth it to do with your kids. You start with a small cup, food already in it and five (in our case) caterpillars. They grew to more than 10x their size, eventually become chrysalides, and they remain that way for about a week. Then, behold! You’ve got butterflies hatching, one by one. That part was unbelievable to me. How did it change from that fat caterpillar I saw a few days ago to a butterfly inside the chrysalides?! How? Anyway, I was not a perfect butterfly Mom by any means (two of the chrysalides fell off in the transfer to the net), but still all five made it so if you think you’re neglectful, this is the perfect science project. We checked out a few butterfly books from the library to go along with it. Overall, Parker really enjoyed the project. He’s into bugs more and more these days. Lately I watch him outside carefully studying what appears to be his arm, his hand, to discover it’s a tiny inchworm he’s housing. A note, however: if you consider yourself squeamish, it’s a little yucky. Butterfly poop in the jar, and then some blood is released when they break out of their cocoons. Nature, ya’ll! We got our butterflies from here.
Love this!
Very cool!!!
How long did the whole process take?
just under a month from start to finish — they arrived as tiny caterpillars and grow into big ones within about a week. then they're in there cocoons for aabout a week. then they hatch and need about a week to get strong enough (plus, you wait for a sunny, nice day to release them!)
nice