Monarch Emerging.

Last week we watched our monarch caterpillar transform into it's chrysalis, it was amazing to watch and kept the kids quite mesmerized. We've been watching our chrysalis for any sign that it was getting to close to emerging.



A few days before, we begin to see the faint colors of a monarch inside.

On the morning that it emerges, the chrysalis becomes transparent and the butterfly inside is quite obvious. When we saw this we knew that our monarch would be emerging at anytime.

Only a few minutes after i took the picture of the translucent chrysalis, i glanced over and saw the chrysalis split. The kids gathered round and we watched in amazement as our monarch emerged.

It dropped out head first, but held on with it's feet. It abdomen is very swelled when it first emerges.

As it begins to uncurl it's wings, the blood from it's abdomen is pumped into the wings. So the abdomen becomes thin and narrow, as the blood is redistributed.

It takes a few minutes for it's wings to uncurl and stretch out.

Once the wings are out, it sits in this position for about an hour or so to let them dry. Then we bring her outside to release.

Sage begged me to put it on her nose, like the swallowtail a few weeks ago. Always a classic picture in our household. :)

Time to fly little monarch! Fare thee well!

It flew away, but didn't go far. She seemed quite happy to hop from flower to flower in our garden. For the last two days while we are outside playing, we see her flutter by while dancing with swallowtails and fritilaries. Sequoia is certain that it is 'our monarch' that we keep seeing fly by. It always makes us smile.