danaus plexippus

This is the story of 3 Monarch (Danaus plexippus) caterpillars; Dum Dum, Michael Phelps, and Bubbles.

Once upon a time, there was a young girl named Lala Bug. With a shriek of glee, she cried "Look! Look at what is on this plant!" Her little brother and her Mama, came running. There, on one of the small milkweed plants that they had grown from seed, was the little caterpillar. They watched this little creature on and off all day and then, the next day, when Mama went to water another milkweed plant, she found two more caterpillars.

Lala Bug, Little Brown Mouse, and Mama were very excited. They all loved Monarch butterflies very much, but had never found any in their own garden before. They gave the three caterpillars names. Little Brown Mouse named the first and biggest caterpillar Dum Dum. Mama named the second biggest caterpillar Michael Phelps (who does a beautiful butterfly stroke and in honor of the Olympics, which was happening when this story began).  Lala Bug named the tiniest little caterpillar Bubbles.

When Dum Dum crawled over the edge of the potted milkweed plant, the three amateur naturalists began to worry. They wanted to watch the entire life cycle of these lovely visitors. Mama suddenly remembered she had scored a butterfly habitat at a thrift sale months ago, so she brought that out and the three naturalists put the caterpillars, potted milkweed and all, into the butterfly habitat.

And then they began to watch. For days they watched, they watered milkweed, they rotated potted plants in and out of the butterfly habitat, and they took photographs.

One day, they noticed that Dum Dum was looking a little darker and was very still. They worried that he was dying! Instead, after several hours, Dum Dum made a little pad and attached himself to the side of the netting. Mama was concerned about his choice of location.

The next morning, when they went to check on the caterpillars, they found that Dum Dum had made a chrysalis. It was fully formed and hardened, with a beautiful golden rim at the top.

Not long after, Michael Phelps showed the same signs of darkening and slowing down. He climbed to the top of the butterfly habitat and attached himself to the lid. (Mama thought this was a much safer location for a chrysalis.) The amateur naturalists now knew, from observation and research, that Michael Phelps would curl up into a J shape before splitting his final caterpillar skin.

While the three humans kept checking, they missed the transformation Michael Phelps made from caterpillar to chrysalis, his third stage in his four stage life cycle.

A few days later, Bubbles made the same transition. This time, the three amateur naturalists caught Bubbles' transformation on video! It was a very exciting moment. (And it was a moment. The change happened very quickly.)

Now the naturalists had to wait. And wait. And wait.

 

More than 2 weeks passed. Mama began to worry again. Had they not survived this stage? In the meantime, the family of naturalists took lots of photographs. The chrysalis of the Monarch caterpillar is small, about an inch long, a lovely shade of pea green, with the most beautiful shimmering gold band.

They had not died! Suddenly, one morning, there was a beautiful Monarch butterfly. While the naturalists did not see the first, Dum Dum, emerge, they did catch the Michael Phelps emerging on video and watched her(!!) pump up her wings.

Each one of the amateur naturalists got a chance to hold and release a butterfly. In doing so, they discovered all three butterflies they had been calling "he" were all actually "she."

These butterflies were the third generation, so as they flew off, the amateur naturalists could envision their winged friends, flying south to Mexico or Monterey Bay (since they began west of the Rockies. East of the Rockies, Monarchs migrate to Mexico.)

Magic.