Remember our caterpillars? Well, in our craziness of June, I realized I forgot to post pictures of our cocoon success. We ended up with 4 Eastern Tent Moth Caterpillars and all of them made cocoons. Jacob got new leaves each day from the trees where we found the caterpillars.
We put them in our Butterfly Pavilion we had from last year. Jacob fed them for three to four weeks before they all made their cocoons. We got to catch two of them in action!
They all chose this spot up in the high crease of the Butterfly Pavilion (as opposed to the stick Jacob got for them). They all even took a trip to Maryland with us, because I couldn't bear the thought of them coming out of their cocoons while we were gone!
In this picture below you can see that two of them made much thicker cocoons than the others. No idea why, but I assumed that they died while they were making them. I was shocked when they came out!
Then one morning we walked by and there was a moth there!
Here you can see the moth's symmetrical wings. Actually, they are beautiful up close! I just don't appreciate their beauty when I'm trying to squeeze in my front door in the dark before I let 10 of them in with me!
Isn't that the most beautiful little boy hand ever?
Jacob was very sad to let them go. I hadn't thought to cover that at the beginning... Once he realized that we had to set them free to let them live, he was kind of okay, but his sensitive little heart was quite sad as he took each one out to their new home in the tree. He wanted to keep them forever. (I decided to save their short life span for another year.)
We put them in our Butterfly Pavilion we had from last year. Jacob fed them for three to four weeks before they all made their cocoons. We got to catch two of them in action!
They all chose this spot up in the high crease of the Butterfly Pavilion (as opposed to the stick Jacob got for them). They all even took a trip to Maryland with us, because I couldn't bear the thought of them coming out of their cocoons while we were gone!
In this picture below you can see that two of them made much thicker cocoons than the others. No idea why, but I assumed that they died while they were making them. I was shocked when they came out!
Then one morning we walked by and there was a moth there!
Here you can see the moth's symmetrical wings. Actually, they are beautiful up close! I just don't appreciate their beauty when I'm trying to squeeze in my front door in the dark before I let 10 of them in with me!
Isn't that the most beautiful little boy hand ever?
Jacob was very sad to let them go. I hadn't thought to cover that at the beginning... Once he realized that we had to set them free to let them live, he was kind of okay, but his sensitive little heart was quite sad as he took each one out to their new home in the tree. He wanted to keep them forever. (I decided to save their short life span for another year.)
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