spark

second chances, part ii: eclosure

So, on Tuesday, October 19, I found a chrysalis that looked like this:

Clear green, the shape of wing veins was evident in the shape of the chrysalis, but there were no dark veins apparent.  Green green green.  

I re-hung the chrysalis in a large critter/bug habitat (the last inhabitants of which were the Frogs of Justice) and tried not to check on it too frequently, since I was sure that a) it was way too early for the butterfly to emerge, and b) it would probably not emerge, anyway.  

BUT THEN

On Wednesday or Thursday of this week, I thought the chrysalis seemed a little lighter, less green.  I inspected it in better light and thought that maybe the veins on the wings were getting darker.  Or maybe I was imagining things.  Or maybe it had a fungus.  I'd give equal odds on each.

AND THEN

On Friday around lunchtime, I looked again and I could totally see orange wing patches!  I checked a monarch chrysalis evolution page I had found earlier and estimated eclosure at Saturday or Sunday morning.  

This is how it looked just after noon:

And this is how it looked by 8pm that evening:

Yeah, baby, ain't no fungus on us! 

I was halfway afraid that it would emerge before I got up on Saturday morning, which would be a bummer.  Luck was with me, and it was still hanging there in the morning.  Phew.  It was dark now, and I was fairly certain that this would be the day.

I started obsessively checking it every 15 minutes.  Nothing.  Nothing.  Nothing.  I got worried that the butterfly wouldn't have room to hang and fill/dry its wings, so I removed the chrysalis from the habitat and tied it to a small branch that I placed in a jug on top of the piano.  

(I will admit that I also wanted better light.  That habitat is a pain.)

I got to work on a project, meaning to check on it every half hour or so.  Two hours went by.  I went downstairs and found this:

Auuuuuugghhhhh!!  I missed it!  I waited over a week for the butterfly to emerge, and I missed the whole thing!! 

Well, not the whole thing, but I was really looking forward to seeing the big swollen bug emerge and pump her crumpled wings full of lymph.  By the time I found her (how long did it take? There wasn't even a ridge on the chrysalis the last time I looked!) her wings were filled but still seemed soft.  She was not opening them yet.  She also seemed very, very shaky on her feet.  While watching her, I noticed that she only had four legs, and I became convinced that this butterfly was deformed and might not live.  So then of course I googled some more ("monarch four legs") and discovered that monarchs always look like that, because their forelegs are tiny and held close to the body.  What I thought were deformed legs were actually normal legs.  There's a lesson in there somewhere.  

I also noticed that she was working on getting her proboscis together, and remembered reading that butterflies have to put together the two sides of their proboscis, and that sometimes you have to take a pin and straighten it out because they need help...and wait wait wait...pregnant women don't need us to fix them and neither do butterflies.  Deep breath.  Low intervention eclosure here, ok?

While I was checking her out, she frassed on me (I deserved it for poking at her).  Frass is caterpillar poop, and butterflies eject a meconium that is liquified frass from the caterpillar's digestive tract.  I apparently got the first squirt.  She continued to exude a drop at a time.  Opening her wings seemed to help force it out.  

(Of course I took a photo, I'm a caterpillar poop enthusiast.) 

I moved her close to a sunny window, which was conveniently located in a tiny room that could be closed off...just in case she suddenly was strong enough to fly.  She did seem to get stronger over the next hour or so.  Her wings were more straight and firm, she was beginning to open and close them, and she seemed more steady on her feet.  

The tears in the empty chrysalis reminded me of orchid petals.  

The kids were fascinated, too.

I've been referring to the butterfly as "her", and indeed, my original assumption was correct.  The butterfly is female, with thick black veins on her wings and no scent spot.  

I spent a long time examining little details, like how the texture of her wings looks almost like fabric.  The scales also have some whorls that reminded me of fingerprints.  I wonder if the whorl patterns are unique?

Butterfly feet are also amazing, a pair of tiny, hook-like grasping claws.  

Uncertain when she would need to eat (I've read that they might not need to eat during the first 24 hours), I offered some fruit, similar to the plates found in butterfly houses at botanical gardens.  I had raspberries and tangerines on hand.  She inspected but did not eat.  

By late afternoon, she was still not attempting to fly and it was pretty chilly outside, so I decided to confine her in the bug habitat overnight and release her on Sunday, which was forecast to be a sunny day with a high of 70 degrees.  Perfect for butterflies ready to get a meal and migrate.  

 

second chances, part i and part iii
flickr gallery of this butterfly

second chances, part i: lost and found

While gardening last week, I found a funny green thing on the ground.  Picking it up, I realized it was a chrysalis.

I had never seen a chrysalis like this.  It had little flecks of gold, silver, and black on it, as though somebody had painted it with a tiny detail brush.  The shape reminded me of a monarch chrysalis, but I thought they would be larger.  I remembered, however, that I had cleared some milkweed vine the day before from a lilac bush that overhangs the spot that I was weeding when I found the chrysalis.  Oddly, I never saw a single caterpillar on those vines all summer.

I thought that I would hold onto it and see if it overwintered, assuming it to be too late for a butterfly to eclose. Swallowtails who pupate at this time of year tend to emerge the following spring. 

Googling determined that it was, indeed, a monarch chrysalis.  Monarchs do not overwinter, and all monarchs who emerge before they can be killed by cold migrate to Mexico (good thinking, monarchs). More googling and some Facebook questioning of my aunt, who is a monarch enthusiast, led me to expect that this pupa was probably less than week old.  My research also taught me that a monarch chrysalis must be suspended from the cremaster in order to develop properly.  If I wanted a chance at seeing this monarch eclose, I needed to hang it from something and keep it out of cold conditions.  Various monarch websites recommended tying a thread around the cremaster and tying it to the top of an enclosed habitat, or to a branch.  Some suggested glue to secure the thread.  I went with white glue, since I expected it to be the least toxic to the developing butterfly.  

Next came the thread - a simple, long piece of sewing thread, tied snugly around the cremaster so that the knot was embedded in the glue.  The glue was smeared a bit during this process, so I added a dab more glue to be sure that the knot would be sealed to the chrysalis.

I looped the thread through the grating on the lid of our trusty critter habitat.

Voila! The chrysalis hangs just as it would outside...but here it's a little more sheltered from the elements.  You're welcome for knocking you down, my monarch friend.

Now all we have to do is watch and wait.  If all goes well and the pupa is unharmed, within about 7-12 days (I'm estimating on the later side - I think the pupa was pretty new) it will darken and the orange markings of the adult's wings will be visible through the transparent casing.  About a day or two later, the imago (adult) will eclose (emerge).  

Always a sucker for more information, I wanted to find out if the sex of the butterfly can be determined by observing the form of the chrysalis.  The answer: yes.  In females, there is a line present on the body segment just below the row of black dots near the cremaster.  This line is not present in males.  To see my idenfication, check the labels on this photo.  Will my assessment prove to be accurate?  Stay tuned! 

 

second chances, part ii and part iii
flickr gallery of this chrysalis

moments

Catching up on the family blog (finally up to June...ugh). Looking at forgotten springtime photos is lovely on this chilly autumn day.

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moments...

 

in which you find tiny things left by strangers to brighten your day

 

in which you explore the fun of sticks - as a human or as a puppy

 

in which you discover something new 

 

in which you just plain recover

 

(you can take as many as you need)

 

in which

you feel

free

 

(have a moment)

the lonely blog(ger)

My name is Jess, and it has been 21 days since my last blog post.

We won't get into how long it has been since I updated my more personal family-cutesie stuff.  I don't even write stuff down any more.  Five million cute things have been uttered and gone undocumented.  (Oh, wait, today Reese said something about mint gum with a spear through it.  Maybe you had to be there.)

I'm wondering how it is possible to have everybody in school for 3 hours, 5 days a week and yet be more busy than before.  How I can be organizing things and yet feel so much less organized.  How I can go to so many school events and social events and yet feel so disconnected.  

Forget the 365 project.  I mean, I'm still taking photos, but I'm feeling intimidated by those possessing better skills and more experience than myself, and I'm lacking inspiration, and I've been alternately feeling like bleah, you can't make me pick up the camera and doing stupid dizty things like accidentally turning the camera off and thinking it's a dead battery, and not being prepared for the dead battery, either.  

One computer died, and I still need to get it fixed.  I need PhotoShop back.  I need a monitor on which I can see photos clearly.  I would also like to win the lottery, so that I can buy some L glass.  I want bokeh so smooth and color so rich and grain so non-existent that you just wanna drink the photos right off the screen.  

There's also the part where I'm moving my son from public school (this is where you all say in unison, "but we believe in the public schools!") to a private school, in the middle of the school year, in a prolonged-yet-not-prolonged-enough moment of raw idealism mixed with deliberate repression of the looming budgetary issues.  That might be causing some angst.  Maybe.  In a good way.  Mostly.  It kinda works in opposition to the whole better-lenses thing, though, but you can't put a price on the importance of a learning environment that actually supports actual learning.  Oh, wait.  You can put a price on it.  And it's worth about 5 pieces of L glass.  I can take photos when they're in college, right?  Wait, I have to pay for college, too? 

Yeah.  It's more about creating a creative environment than actually being creative right now.  

So it has been dead here.  Not that it was ever lively here.  I'll try to work on that.  Or something.