Our First Family Pet (for 3 1/2 days!!)

...Continued from the last posting...

 

"If you are lucky, you might see the skin of the chrysalis splitting open to allow the butterfly to come out.  At first its body is fat with fluid that it must pump into the crumpled wings.  The wings are crumpled because that is the only way they could have fit into the chrysalis.  The pumped fluid allows the wings to spread out to their full size but they are still soft and delicate for awhile.  It takes at least half an hour before they are dried and hardened enough to be able to fly."

 

"Then you can take the butterfly outside to release it."

 The girls tried to get the butterfly to fly away but it was being really stubborn and stayed on its leaf.

It was then time to leave for work and the caregivers so this is how they left the butterfly in the morning.

 

 

 

When we returned home after work the butterfly was gone!

 

"If it is September, your Monarch butterfly will probably be one of those that will fly south to Mexico to spend the winter there and then in the spring it will head north again although it probably will not make it all the way back to Canada.  Most likely it will breed somewhere in the US and its offspring will be the ones that arrive back here in early summer of next year."