The Butterfly

A couple weeks ago, I mentioned that Isabel found a caterpillar at the park. We brought her home and a day later she wrapped herself in a chrysalis. I never took pictures of the caterpillar, because well, we had no time before she changed. And then I never took pictures of the chrysalis because I thought we would kill it for sure. We've tried the whole butterfly thing before; it didn't work out so well.

Well...today, our caterpillar turned into a beautiful butterfly! We actually kept it alive! I'm just as amazed as you are!

A Mourning Cloak Caterpillar (pic from the internet)

The empty chrysalis

Our Butterfly

She will be released tomorrow morning.

And yes, she's sitting on a black twist tie...I had to hang her chrysalis back up after it fell off the mesh top. Well, I didn't have to, but after a couple days of the chrysalis wiggling around, we thought maybe she needed to be hanging again. ???

What an amazing thing!

There aren't too many things that I can think of that have such a total transformation like a caterpillar to a butterfly. (Actually, I can only think of a tadpole to a frog.) Nature is so awesome...We may have to get out there more this summer and really enjoy it!