Yesterday I headed up to the bach for Queens Birthday weekend. With me came four Monarch Caterpillars to be replanted on the swan plants that are all over the property.Replanted them in a nice sunny spot and wandered around to check out the caterpillar population on the other plants. To my delight I found a big fat juicy one, hanging by its bum, ready to turn itself into a chrysalis. Returned half-an-hour later to find it was half way thru the process. It was so amazing, the speed of the transformation is so fast, you can watch it happening. So I stood there for about 10 minutes watching the magic that is nature. He wiggled and jiggled and with great effort he shed his furry skin to reveal a green slug which was partly chrysalised. It was truly an amazing event to behold when horrors-of-horrors he fell – splat on the ground – dead instantly. I was mortified – I felt a mother losing her child – I was devastated.
No wonder the Monarch Butterfly are supposedly* struggling for survival. All that effort for nought.
* Personally I see Monarch Butterflies all over the place, so wonder about this shortage report.
Update: Look at this for horror.
Hat tip Lolly Scramble.
3 comments:
totally agree on this, amazing to watch, hope you get to see the other end too!
Loved your comments re Mother Tongue and Eats, Shoots & Leaves, both great books.
Gis xx
How amazing, but how sad too that it fell off. When we got some caterpillars not too long ago it was so magical to watch.
Anyway, I tagged you over at my blog:
http://whitesinnz.blogspot.com/2009/05/eight-things.html
A friend gave my young daughter a chrysalis on a twig and we hatched it indoors and managed to liberate the Monarch. It was an experience.
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