It has been a really special butterfly season. I am thankful for all the fruits Wild Peace Farm has brought into local lives, and particularly for the Monarchs that have touched hearts and souls and eyeballs. The first Monarch friend I made came out of his egg before my eyes in July. This, the last friend, snuck into my house on some Milkweed and surprised me as a 4th instar a week later! He made his chrysalis on my laundry basket while I was in Oregon. And he came out of his chrysalis October 21st, while I was holding the twig I taped him to in my hand, a more beautiful exit than I could have asked for.
That one time, when I said that butterfly season was over and I was ready to write about other things? Yeah…. about that.
There are still Monarchs coming out of their chrysalises around here, and after my excitement over a late season butterfly last October I feel really lucky to have seen the late season lifecycle up close and personal… I have noted a pupation length of 14 days in a friend who emerged just this morning. That compares with 8 days in July/August, when temperatures were hot hot hot and day length was long. Science guys… they said temperature and length of daylight influence rate of growth and length of pupation and this has proven anecdotally accurate.
This Monarch is a male- the first I predicted in chrysalis (I learned how to sex a Monarch chrysalis here). On this butterfly you can just barely see the sexy sexing dot through his hindwing, bulging off a black vein, where his lovely smelly pheromones will be produced. He is also rescued; the last 5th instar caterpillar found in the tomato plants when it was nearing time to take them down. They are gone now, but he is here.
I have lived a number of childhood nature dreams involving Monarchs this summer. Thank you very much Wild Peace Farm for making it all possible. I saw a wild Chrysalis (in the tomatoes!), I saw multiple caterpillars molting, I saw a Monarch form its chrysalis, I saw a butterfly emerge from its chrysalis, I saw a Monarch egg hatch. I mean come on! But one thing just got checked off my list, and after so many spoils I wasn’t in any way expecting it.
This butterfly flew around me while I picked Sweet Peppers on Wednesday, and it is not a Monarch. Can you spot the differences?
As always, things get a little shaky filming (videoing?) with my iPhone 3 while also trying to closely observe a MIRACLE with my own eyeballs. I mean I wanted to share it with you but not as much as I wanted to watch for myself.
From the Black Swallowtail Chrysalis formed late at night on August 4th to a butterfly when I came home from the beach on the afternoon of the 13th! I put the video up here again because once I saw this butterfly I couldn’t believe it was actually my old Dill and Fennel loving friend and I had to re-watch. Although I expected her pupation to last longer (or would have worried about leaving her inside while away on a little vacay) she seems to have turned out beautifully and she flew high off into the sky after resting on this Marigold for a minute.
This really is a female! Males just have a few blue spots on their bottom wings.
I collected this egg after seeing the Mama Monarch lay it at Wild Peace Farm on August 2 (Saturday). Now my little baby, who I watched hatch, is a chrysalis, becoming an adult as we speak! Parenting this adolescent is really not the hardest.
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August 7th (Thursday) 2nd Instar- molting occurred overnight
August 8th (Friday) 3rd Instar- molting observed seconds before this photo!
August 9 (Saturday) 3rd instar fattened up
August 10th (Sunday) 4th instar- molting occurred overnight!!
August 11 (Monday)
Aug 12th (Tuesday) He molted into a 5th instar on the drive to Ocean City
Aug 13th (Wednesday) 5th instar and eating too much to believe!
August 14 (Thursday)
August 15 (Friday) at 11pm the J began
August 16 (Saturday) at 2:30pm- My little guy did it! This party got started at 2pm, and looked pretty set by 2:30!
*I “filmed” this through a small hand lens held against my 4 year old iPhone. What I am saying is, I’m sorry if you get motion sick, cannot see anything, or are otherwise less than satisfied. I certainly managed to entertain myself.*
I collected this egg on Saturday. While laying their many eggs, Monarch butterfly ladies fly around landing on plants for a microsecond. What they are doing is smelling the leaves with their feet! If they land on a milkweed, the caterpillar’s only chosen food (gluten free), the female butterfly stays for maybe 2 seconds. It is hard to see anything happening, but afterwards there may be a little tiny yellow dot on the bottom of the leaf! I am pretty sure that I saw the butterfly lay this egg which is just like, I mean I am surprised I am not crying about the beauty of all this lifecycle shizz but it has been a long day.
I spent a lot of time trying to find Monarch eggs when I was a child, and I almost never did. So lets be honest, when I first spotted these I knew one was going to come home with me. Ethical arguments aside, the moments when you know without a doubt just what you are going to do irrelevant of whatever you should do are rare, and we should embrace them.
This morning I noticed that the little egg was no longer yellow, but sort of clear with a black spot on the top. I had already read that this is a sign you should stay home all day and stare at it through your hand lens until nothing happens except your squint lines don’t go away after you stop squinting and you are kind of sweaty.
But then, you know, something happened. Six hours later!
And the baby ate her egg. Some would say this is an argument for eating your placenta. Some would say that is disgusting and not actually the same thing at all. Who am I to judge? She ate all of it and came back looking for more. Very very hungry caterpillar.
This little baby first instar, who will shed her skin 4 times before a final shedding unsheathes a chrysalis, is very delicate. Since she emerged two hours ago I have actually thought I killed her twice with my thumb. Now she is safely in a Mason jar. That’s right everyone, I am raising a hipster butterfly. She is tucked in with a fresh, pesticide free baby Milkweed leaf, from which she will supposedly only eat the hairs. Because the whole leaf is so 2011 to eat and also because the hairs are almost as big as she is, so they are enough.
*update from the future- the hairs were NOT enough, and she ate about three times her body size worth of leaf in a day.*
I hope she lives. The odds would be against her in the wild (even Wild Peace) and I suppose they may even be here #masonjarproblems.
But whatever I’m totally excited. And also I am helping her! Maybe.
everycreepingthing 