Grow Your Own Butterfly

A few years ago for Christmas I picked up a butterfly habitat for the girls. It came with a handy, dandy card to order live larvae. Adelle found the long forgotten butterfly habitat and we decided to finally order the caterpillars. I didn't take any pictures of them, but I should have. They arrived in cups with their own food. They ate and grew quickly and in just a few days they formed chrysalises. We placed the chrysalises in the butterfly habitat. It only took a week or so for them to emerge as beautiful painted lady butterflies. We had a choice to either let them live their 2 short weeks in captivity or let them go. Adelle really wanted to keep them as long as possible and wanted them to lay eggs so we could have hundreds of caterpillars. I didn't like that idea since we would need to scavenge food for them. Wes was absolutely grossed out with the bugs in the house. So the adults won out and we let them go. They were so pretty. Two of the butterflies really "liked" each other. I was nervous that they would leave eggs before they departed, but they eventually flew away without leaving any offspring.

It really was a neat experience and I would love to try another bug adventure some day. I have always loved bugs anyway and it was very interesting to see most the the butterflies life cycle. Also, they are so beautiful!