1 Caterpillar, 2 Caterpillars....10 Caterpillars

I mentioned caterpillars earlier... well, here's a sample. We first found caterpillars on Saturday morning. Not thinking about it, we let the first three (all monarch caterpillars) get away. Then we let the next two (Hickory Tussock caterpillars) get away. It wasn't until after that when we remembered we had this great little butterfly garden. So we started collecting. We brought home, from our walk, three Hickory Tussock Caterpillars. The next day we found another 6 caterpillars - two were monarch and 4 were something else that we've still not been able to identify. That brought us up to 9. When Gabi went for fresh milkweed, she found another and promptly brought it in. It was of the group that we can't identify.


This first one is the one we can't identify. We have 5 of them. If anyone knows what they are, please share with us. I'm fairly certain that it's a type of moth caterpillar, since it's hair and that's typically a sign for moths.


This next one is the Hickory Tussock Caterpillar. It is a moth caterpillar, so if we keep it, we'll have it over the winter. They only reproduce once a year, and they live in their chrysalids over the winter to emerge sometime in late spring.


And, of course, there's the Monarch Caterpillar. This is a butterfly (for anyone who doesn't know or can't tell from the name). Which means that they reproduce twice a year, will go from larvae to chrysalids in two weeks, spend two weeks inside the chrysalids and then emerge. Much faster, and much more exciting for little kids.


As you can tell, these Monarch Caterpillars were already very large when we found them. So we predicted they'd morph into chrysalids within a couple of days. We weren't too far off. The first one began the journey yesterday about dinner time and completed the chrysalis about 24 hours later. The second one began tonight, just after dinner. We hope to watch the change more fully tomorrow - it's very exciting and the kids are planning not to be far from the butterfly garden all day so they can continually check and not miss anything! :)

Although I do have pictures of the first caterpillar in the J formation and then in the chrysalis, I'll wait until tomorrow to post, as we'll have more pictures from our "watching-non-stop" tomorrow... and that will be more fun!