This magnificent female monarch butterfly, a resident released from our butterfly house after hatching this morning, sure let me do a great photoshoot.
Magnificent
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Category Archives: raising monarch butterflies
A calmness
Another successful morning in the butterfly house with three new beauties, two males and one female monarch butterfly emerging from their chrysalis.
There is such a calmness that washes over me when I watch these butterflies enter the world, climbing onto my fingers and taking its first flight after their wings are dry.
New skin
I have always only found the remains of when a caterpillar molts, sheds, its skin. I have never witnessed the process in person until today when I took a peek into our butterfly house.
According to author Thomas C. Emmel of “Florida’s Fabulous Butterflies,” the caterpillar is comprised of chitin, a hard material that is somewhat like fingernails. With this type of skeleton, the author said, it does not grow, which is why the caterpillar, depending on the species, can molt up to nine times. The final stage of its molting is pretty incredible as it prepares to become a butterfly.
More success
This morning as I was cleaning out our butterfly house and replacing some of the plants for the caterpillars within, I heard a small cracking noise and looked up to see a monarch butterfly slowly emerging from its chrysalis. It is such a spectacular sight to watch, especially knowing how the life of the butterfly began.
It emerges by splitting the now translucent chrysalis along the length of the proboscis near its head. The monarch then slowly moves its legs out, holding on while removing the rest of its body. The body is swollen with fluid when it first emerges. The monarch will begin pumping fluid from its body to the veins of its extremely soft wings. According to “Florida’s Fabulous Butterflies” the wings expand by the pressure of the fluids moving through the veins on its wings. Once completed, the body shrinks to a normal size. The monarch then hangs upside down, we have seen for more than two hours at times, drying, hardening, its wings before it’s ready to take its first flight.
Today we had six successful hatches in our butterfly house, all of which emerged before 10 a.m. Once they began flying around the butterfly house we released them into our butterfly garden. Some flew to the branches of trees, while others flew to areas where they could sit longer.
For more information about monarch butterflies: visit my page: https://sweetbutterflybliss.com/monarch-butterfly/?frame-nonce=337ab32fc1
Sipping nectar
With one injured wing, this male monarch butterfly has been found fluttering around our garden the last day or so.
Once he was shown to our lantana plant, my daughter and I watched him drink to his heart’s content. My daughter then began picking individual flowers and feeding him in her hands while talking sweetly to the stunning butterfly.
It just goes to show that if you slow down enough, you have the opportunity to witness nature at its finest.
For more information about monarch butterflies: visit my page: https://sweetbutterflybliss.com/monarch-butterfly/?frame-nonce=337ab32fc1