The Postpartum Post: Metamorphosis: Complete

My last post was about finding and raising Monarch caterpillars. This one will be about what happens once that 10 day waiting period is over. Magical does not even begin to describe this process. You can break this process down as scientifically as you want and I will still be in awe and amazed at the complex design of this creature who's only purpose seems to be mystifying everyone who sees it. That's how I feel about all butterflies and many moths.

Anyway, I will pull my head out of the clouds of wonder for a few moments and describe to you what I saw!

When I woke up on Friday morning and came downstairs to make my Maypo I noticed that the two chrysalis that had formed first were both black! This happened to me with the first butterfly I hatched this summer (before I stumbled on the huge bounty of caterpillars I've now got) and I waited up into the night waiting for it to hatch.

Taken August 11, 2012

Of course it waited until I went to sleep to come out!!

There was a little something different about these chrysalis. They were black as midnight.

Chrysalis #1 Taken August 31, 2012

Chrysalis #2 Taken August 31, 2012

You can see the difference! Another bit of useful info that one of my Facebook friends gave me is that you will see a bit of liquid inside the chrysalis at the bottom moments before they emerge. This is meconium, or "frass" (butterfly poop) which is also the term for when a human baby has it's first bowel movement inside the womb! Monarchs are born head down and the large part at the top of the chrysalis contains it's abdomen, all of which is squished up in like an accordian. You can see in the photos that the wings are tightly packed to the sides. Look at how a fresh chrysalis looks like a mold for the butterfly wings:

This chrysalis has not yet compressed and hardened, and you can see the wing detail and even the form of what the abdomen looks like (ringed part at the top)! The yellow dots will become that beautiful metallic gold that is made possible by a chemical compound found in milkweed poison!

This chrysalis is a few hours older than the above one, and is how it will look until it turns black. You can still see the wing pattern! There is an iridescent quality to the entire chrysalis that is hard to photograph, and you may not even notice unless you hold one in the light and look at it.

Unfortunately one of the chrysalis fell off it's cover because I opened the tupperware it was in and didn't realize it had threaded too close to the side.

These need to be hanging properly or they won't form correctly. I had read that you can take a bit of thread and white glue (no superglue!) and rehang them, so I thought I would give it a try.

The black "stick" at the top is the cremaster. I put a small dot of white glue on it and then carefully laid it down on the counter and wrapped a piece of white thread around where the glue was and double knotted it:

At first I didn't know what to hang it from so I wrapped the thread around the knob of one of my cupboards! High traffic area though so I had to figure something out...

I went to the local Hannaford grocery store and bought a $5 chrysanthemum! I needed something for the butterflies to chill on when they were done drying and it fit inside the Butterfly Pavilion nicely! I ended up pulling and rehanging 4 chrysalis on this mum just like Christmas ornaments! I will be doing more tomorrow because the tupperwares they are in are too shallow to effectively allow the butterfly to dry.

Now, on to the emergence. As I had been able to do time-lapse movies for both molting and pupating I had hoped to get one of the last stage as well. I watched that second chrysalis like a hawk. I set my camera up with the 18-55mm kit lens I love so much and checked on it every few minutes.

As you can see I have suspended the chrysalis between two drinking glasses in order to allow enough room for it to hang. When I had come home to find the first butterfly out it was laying on the bottom of the tupperware flailing it's legs because it had not had enough room to expand and fell.