Reckless Recreation: Monarch Butterflies

This summer the kids found three monarch caterpillars.  It seemed like last year there weren't very many monarch butterflies and I worried that they were suffering a similar plight to bats.  Needless to say we were excited!

The first of the three that hatched (is hatched the right word?)  and you can see the other 2 chrysalis in the back

Some might think it is counter intuitive to capture the caterpillars, but since we found them in the corn field that gets harvested and chopped to pieces, I felt we were saving three monarch caterpillar's lives.

Here he is all "grown up" and ready to fly.  See, we saved his life!

It was amazing to observe the process of metamorphosis with the kiddos.  It is truly amazing that a little striped wormy thing #1 sheds it skin and become a beautiful chrysalis and #2 that wormy thing turned chrysalis becomes a butterfly.  It seems so totally unrelated to a caterpillar.  I suppose though that it is equally amazing that a sperm and an egg become a zygote and then an embryo and then an infant and then a 10 year old and a 40 year old and on an on...Life is truly amazing in all its forms.

I caught this one seconds after it hatched so I was able to photograph him minute by minute as he dried out and eventually spread his wings to fly.

 

Well there I have waxed philosophical for the day.  Now I can return to my normal diaper changing, toilet cleaning duties, and maybe, just maybe this philosophical diversion will carry me through the mundane.