The Changling

It's monarch caterpillar season and we all know what that means, right? Time for the Chili's to go on their 4th annual monarch caterpillar hunt! This is the 4th year that we have helped keep the monarch butterfly population going strong by capturing said caterpillars and raising them to become responsible adult monarch butterflies.

The monarch butterfly population, among many others, is dwindling due to urbanization and so by capturing the caterpillars we are increasing the chances that they will make it into adulthood by providing a stable and safe environment away from predators. We didn't know that when we began this project 4 years ago, we just liked bugs and wanted to watch them go through all the cool changes. But knowing that we are contributing to the betterment of the monarch butterfly population is definitely an added bonus.

And so our adventure begins on the Falling Waters Trail just a couple of miles from our house.


We had ventured less than 50 yards down the trail when we spotted some milkweed plants.




Believe it or not, these little yellow and black striped buggers are hard to spot.


You have to really get in there and look all over the plant, especially under the leaves. They typically stay on the underside of the leaf in order to avoid getting eaten by ravenous birds. (Notice the nerf dart stuck to Chase's shorts. Obviously he took a hit to the butt. Man, if I had a nickel for every nerf dart I found around my house...sheesh.)


Booyah! We found one! We were excited to find this guy, but discouraged at the magnitude of mosquitoes that were swarming us, so we headed back to the truck to drive to our other favorite caterpillar hunting grounds.


This is where we tend to find at least 1 or 2 every year.


Jayme and Jodie are closely inspecting the milkweed plant...


....and wahlah! Another creepy crawly!


Meanwhile, Chase found another and obviously feels quite proud of himself.


We found a total of 6 little critters which we took home and placed in their new surroundings.


They are adapting marvelously, and well they should since they have all the fresh milkweed they could ever want and don't have to fear being eaten by the diabolically evil, Robin Redbreast.




Ummm...sorry to have to tell you this kids, but there's no dating until you're full grown butterflies.








I like this picture of Chase peering through the glass of the aquarium. We spend exorbitant amounts of time watching these fascinating creatures.


And lookie there! One is already preparing to build a chrysalis.


Here's Fabio in his chrysalis. (I had to take this through cellophane so the picture isn't very good.) Once again, for the 4th year, we have missed the making of the chrysalis. They must do it awfully fast because we are like fleas on a hound dog when it comes to sticking to our post as observers of the tank. Those bugger's will be hanging in a "J" for hours and we'll keep checking on it every few minutes, and then "blam", the next thing we know the thing's in a dang chrysalis. We have 2 more hanging in the "J" position and I've looked at them a dozen times in the last 2 hours. I bet the creeps are making the cocoon as I write...so I better go check.


Finally! Finally we have been able to watch these tri-colored changlings morph into the chrysalis stage! We didn't actually see the entire process. The above photo shows the critter already beginning to morph. It seems to begin from the bottom, which is really the head because he was hanging upside down. Notice the ridge of green about midway up the blob. Now look at the next picture....


...the green ridge has moved up higher to the next stripe. This continues until...


...the entire caterpillar is enveloped by the green material.


This picture is of Fabio who built his cocoon first and it now has a ring of beautiful golden spots. Matilda or Amarillo is in the background, hanging in the "j", preparing to begin the morphing process. Wild, I'm tellin' ya, just wild.

Oh My Nerves!! We saw more of the morphing process yesterday and here are the pictures to prove it. I have finally figured out just what is going on with these unbelievable creatures. I wish I would have had my camera sooner, but I was so mesmerized by the whole thing I didn't think to grab my camera right away. Here's what happened. I was walking through the living room and did my usual check on the critters. One that had been hanging in a "j" position was making a lot of movement, so I stopped and continued to watch. The poor thing looked like he was going through convulsions or perhaps had eaten a bad leaf and was preparing to violently heave his lunch. I walked away and stepped into the kitchen for about a minute and came back and there was this green blob on the bottom of the "j". I called for the kids and we watched as the changling wriggled and jiggled, all the while the green blob crept up his body. As the green rose to the top of his body, a black substance was being pushed up which we realized was his old body. He was shedding the old and becoming new...hmmm...might make for a good sermon. Anyhoo, all of a sudden I yelled, "My camera!" and I ran to get it and snapped the following pictures.


The process has begun, notice the old skin at the top.


Can you tell that the little guy is wiggling his heart out?


The old body fell off, there's still a lot of wiggling going on. This looks like hard work.


More wiggling.


From here the lower green material moves up and takes over like in the previous picture from a couple of days ago. Eventually he will be smooth and after a few days the shape changes a bit and the gold gems begin to appear.

So there you have it. Another episode in the life of our beloved caterpillars.

Stay tuned, because in about 5 or 6 days our first cocoon maker, Fabio should be about ready to proudly emerge as a beautiful monarch butterfly. We'll keep ya posted.