Thursday 9 May 2013

An incredible miracle

One of the most incredible miracles in the world is the miracle of the butterfly. It is a caterpillar; then a cocoon; and lastly a butterfly! Two incredible major changes take place in it's life, and we were blessed to be on hand to watch. This is our story.

On the last Thursday of the school term after my violin lesson, we went to Mum's friend's house for a few minutes. We told her that we have always had problems raising caterpillars. (We grow the swan plants but whenever we get caterpillars they always disappear the same day and we've never properly watched them.) She was very kind and offered us three of her monarch caterpillars. When we got home we put them on a swan plant on our windowsill (because we feared it was too cold for them outside and they might die) and have been privileged to watch them progress from caterpillar to cocoon to butterfly.


The first stage: Caterpillar!!

 I do apologise for the condition of these photographs as we didn't want to upset the caterpillar by the flash when it was busy turning into a cocoon. So these photos are the best I could do, sorry!
Second stage: Cocoon. This is the very early hours of the cocoon, it is not in the proper shape yet.


This rather blurry photo is the skin the caterpillar shed when it turned into a cocoon.

And this is the proper shape for the cocoon.

 Once again I apologise about the number and quality of the photos. I think that most of you reading this blog are a hundred times better at photography than me... so you'll have to bear with me. That, by the way, is the full extent of the photos I took so we'll have to resort to good old google images for the rest of the process.



Isn't that amazing??? Why did I even try to do my own photos????!!!











Here's the caterpillar turning into a cocoon.

That's all folks! Enjoy your Thursdays!


2 comments:

  1. We raised quite a few monarchs in the States--it was a yearly summer thing. LOTS of fun! I remember once all at the same time we had a caterpillar, one in a chrysalis, and one just coming out of the chrysalis! SO neat to watch. :)

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    Replies
    1. It is, isn't it?? I'm hopeful that next year we can get some more, but now it's getting a bit too cold for them. :-(

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