Our first chrysalis hatched! Over the past couple of days, little specks of grey increasingly interrupted the chrysalis' bright celadon green. Two days ago, I spied antennae crushed up against the casing. Then, yesterday morning, the green was gone and we saw the familiar orange and black pattern of a monarch, all folded up into that tiny space. An hour or so later, I was chatting with mini-pear in the kitchen and caught sight of a languid orange flutter behind her.
Mini-pear identified him as a "he" - black spots visible in a certain place on the wings. After some time watching him slowly pump fluid into his wings, we moved the entire plant outside. Monarchs supposedly have very strong wings. There is actually a project that tags their wings, and we found several sources telling us how to pick them up by their wings properly. We weren't going to tag ours though, and I saw no need to pick him up just because we wanted to see him fly around our house for a bit. He stayed on the plant out on the patio for at least 3 hours. We watched, took pictures and videos (I'll post one that really shows off his wings, but I need to compress it a bit first) and then left the plant outside while we walked to the post office. When we came home, he was gone - hopefully on his way to Mexico!
Precious! I love that you documented it.
Posted by: water | October 06, 2007 at 01:44 AM