Caterpillar to pretty butterfly...

Remember my recent fixation? My sister got me another batch of caterpillars - apparently her father in law's lime plant was "home sweet home" to quite a large number of eggs laid by the lime butterfly(s?). 

She recently inspected the plant and caught me another fresh batch of 5 more "babes"... And in this picture you will see them all at different stages of growth... The young doesn't look too appetising isnt it? Looking like bird poop would save them from birds. As they grow bigger they turn green and gets hidden when they hide among the leaves. I noticed after they turn green, they "balloon" in size very quickly. The large green one was about the size of the small green one less than 2 days ago...

Back to the original two caterpillars, the one that landed up on the bottom of the bowl finally turned into a pretty butterfly! Initially, I thought it was dead - despite observing what look like the outline of wings on the surface of the pupa (can you spot it?) 

On 24 July, nine days after it became a pupa , it emerged as a pretty butterfly! The aftermath of its emergence is mmm pretty disgusting (can't tell from the photo right? It was actually wet)...

Here are pictures of the butterfly. N was so excited that she camped next to the "habitat". When hubby returned from work, she loudly exclaimed "daddy daddy look at my butterfly!". 

We decided to release the butterfly on the same day. We headed to Hort park only to realise there wasn't much vegetation. Hubby then drove to Labrador Park - much better and we saw other butterflies there as well. We let N release the butterfly after I opened the paper covering the habitat...

N slowly peels the paper away (initally I was worried that the butterfly will fly into her face). 

It didn't... Instead it stayed on the paper and flapped its wings - like it was saying thank you and good bye. 

Finally it took off into the hot evening... Landed on some greens for hubby to take some last photos before it took off and we never saw it again... Can you spot it in the photos? 

The other caterpillar (from batch 1) is still in the pupa stage. Hubby said that the bowl doesn't make a good container for photos. He bought a tall glass bottle for it... So I transferred the pupa by pasting the branch on a longer stem... 

I wonder when it will emerge and surprise the children... I would think soon? The pupa seems to be getting more "chao dar" (brown/burnt) - as dark areas appear - on the top part of the pupa (which I think is the butterfly's wings). Since this one became a pupa about 2-3 days after the first, it should be emerging soon! Excited! 

Caterpillars!

I have always wanted to get my hands on caterpillars. Since N is old enough to appreciate and since she loves science. 

I was super excited when my sis posted on facebook that her FIL's lime tree was infested with caterpillars. I immediately told her i wanted to adopt 2! 

I thought i could wait till the next day for photos but it was too late! One was on its way to be a pupae, while the other was chomping its way through another leaf... 

This is the one that was hanging from the top of the bowl cover... 

Horrors of horrors! It fell off the top! :( and it's at the bottom of the bowl... 

Am praying it doesn't die... Consulted a few friends who told me to leave it alone. Like some first time parent, i took out the bowl to look at the "fallen" caterpillar and noticed it was turning lighter - a process called crystallis... Hopefully it will continue to grow into a beautiful butterfly... 

Anyway I did some research and with confirmation from my friend Sylvia, it is concluded that this is a lime butterfly offspring at its very late final stages of being a caterpillar. The lifecycle is being chronicled in this blog I found online. 

http://butterflycircle.blogspot.sg/2011/11/life-history-of-lime-butterfly-v20.html?m=1