butterflies

Hello,

There was a talk about monarchs at the library. Someone brought in and left a mesh container with milkweed stems hosting some monarch eggs. They have hatched with four chrysalis and more to come.

One day my coworker commented on the caterpillar hanging from the top of the mesh in a j shape. This container is sitting on the ledge above the computer that I use when sitting at the front desk. About five minutes later she came out, jumped around, and shrieked, “Oh look! Look!”

We were able to witness the final steps to making its chrysalis. We were both quite excited.

One day when I came in I noticed that the leaves on one milkweed had shriveled up and some on the second stem did not look very good. I called the person who had brought them. She came almost immediately on a house call to fix the situation with more clean water vases and new stems. She got it set up and then carefully coaxed the munching caterpillars to the new nourishing leaves.

Yesterday early in the morning someone noticed that one chrysalis was darker and that you could see the orange and black of the wings through it. Perhaps an hour later someone spotted the butterfly lying on the floor of the container. Occasionally it would flail its legs to no avail. My coworker tried to get it to hang on a stick as she has them at home and that is how they are at first they hang from something before they can fly. I have to confess that it was afternoon before I called the butterfly doctor. Again she rushed right over. She also tried to get this stress creature to hang from the ceiling of the cage to no avail. After giving the caterpillars new leaves, she put the new monarch in a bug box to take it home and continue to doctor it hoping it might make it. I am sorry that I did not call sooner. I had no idea that so much human intervention was possible in this process.

I have learned a lot about monarchs.

Paula