Yesterday we went by Corey's parents house so that Katie and Noah could water the plants they helped Nanna plant while they were with her this weekend.
While we were there, they found a caterpillar....and the rest is history.
Our caterpillar, named "Hungry Hungry" by Katie and Noah, spent his first night in a pint sized Mason jar, with some leaves that were growing on a vine in Nanna's yard. Then, this morning, I got some leaves from a bush in our front yard.
Then I got on the computer to do research about caterpillars. Some of it was kind of disturbing, actually.....like....sometimes other bugs will lay eggs inside them and they will hatch and eat them from the inside out!!!! ?!?!?!?EWWWWWW?!?!?!?!?!?!
And, many butterfly caterpillars are very picky eaters. Turns out they will only eat leaves that come from the plant or tree that you found it on. They will STARVE TO DEATH before eating an unfamiliar leaf....sounds like they would fit in with a certain member of OUR family! :)
Our little caterpillar had been very still.....I had to poke him a couple of times to see if he was still alive. Side note....you can't really tell if its a "him or her" until after it transforms, so I guess we will never know on that point. Since our's had been so sedentary, I decided we might should find it some appropriate food. This afternoon we went out to Wal-Mart to pick up a little habitat for it. Got a pretty good deal, $4 for a mesh bug house and a little set of tools, a flashlight, tweezers, and a magnifying glass. Then, on the way home we stopped by to get some "native" leaves for him. While there, I noticed another caterpillar on the tree, so Nanna threw him in the habitat for good measure (in case of a casualty while we were out)
So....now we have two caterpillars. All snug in their nice bug house, with a little branch of leaves. They have both been crawling around and eating like crazy, so this makes me hopeful that the picky eating means they are butterfly caterpillars and won't just turn out to be ugly moths.
The two caterpillars have been renamed: One is Hungry (but called Queen) and the other is also named Hungry (but called King).
Hopefully they won't die and maybe we will have pictures of a transformation going on in the next few weeks...(I have no idea how long it takes)
1 comment:
I am a bad friend... sorry no comments for over a week!! How are hungry and hungry? I haven't asked about them in two days... They sure are cute. Canaan is going to want one now.
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