There we saw a display area where we could observe
I should be using this post and the questions it brings up to research the answers and bring them to you. You'd think that I'd have the answers from whatever the plaques said at the museum, though I don't actually remember many of those. In case you don't check in on my other blog A New Yorker in Houston, you might not know that I've been kind of buried under the completion of something and have barely managed to get something up here. Posting Lite I could call it.
For now I will throw my questions out there, and in a few weeks when I have a life again, maybe they can be answered. Or maybe some of you can help. Here they are:
How do they know when to cocoon? And how is that made...they must make it themselves around them. And what is this incredible gold substance? They look like beads from an egyptian necklace.
And I was captivated by the shiny milky gorgeous emerald green ones. They remind me of those dished Martha Stewart has, lol. The row above them look like leaved and wilted leaves above those. I want to know what they all are.
How do those magnificent wings grow in such a small space? How long does it take? Does this happen only once a year, at the same time of year? And how long do butterflies live?
There were several types of butterflies that crawled from the cocoons above. I caught a little video of some of them trying out their wings. How gorgeous are the cobalt blue ones?At some point, I imagine shortly thereafter, these are released into the pavilion where they literally dance in the air and flit from bowls of fruit to fragrant flowers to many a shiny green leaf. A pretty nice life, however long it is.
So if you know the answer or even a guess to any of these questions, or have some questions of your own, please let me know in the comments!
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9 comments:
So gorgeous is Rebirth <3
I don't know the answers to your questions but I can tell you that it takes about 15 minutes for a Monarch caterpillar to transform into it's crysallis.
The place I buy my bird seed had monarch caterpillars every year that you can buy around memorial day. I got them one year for myself and my nieces. They are tiny little things and you feed them milkweed leaves (provided). They were housed in a thing that looks like 2 plastic cups attached with the openings together <> like that kinda. Within a couple weeks they were huge and then all of a sudden there was a chrysalis. It was green. One day the green went away and it was crystal clear. You could see the butterfly inside. It slit and the butterfly emerged kinda white and wrinkly it looked kinda wet. It hung upside and the wings got bigger and bigger and brighter colors. The color actually sort of drips of the wings a little. I took him outside and released him in my garden. Now that was fun.
Maybe you could call around or look on the internet and grow your own butterfly. You can always release it in the park you love so much.
The lime green crystalis with the little seam the runs parallel to the ground is the monarch I think. The ones that look like leaves are moths.
I'll have to check out the others.
Margo
Glad you enjoyed the kitten video :-)
I visited the Butterfly Habitat in Key West and came away with the same childlike glee and lots of questions, too. I see another hobby for "old age" and to keep the mind young...
As to iMovie, I just bumbled through, many wasted hours but actually got the "how to edit sound" from the iMovie HD Help button, haha. Go to "Working with sound", then "Aligning audio with video", then changing the length of an audio clip". The music is some I downloaded from iTunes.
My Mac isn't new (2007 model) and I don't have any other software for photo editing yet other than some freebie stuff which I have yet to try and learn.
I haven't upgraded any of the things like iMovie etc since I got the computer.
If your Mac is of a similar era, I would be more than happy to try and walk you through it over the phone.
We do butterfly hatching each year at the preschool where I teach. We order them from some place, and they are delivered on a Thursday as tiny little caterpillars. We come back on Tuesday, and they are long and thin still. Over the week they get fuller. On that Thursday (one week after delivery), they are long and fat. When we return on Tuesday, they are in chrysallis state. By Thursday (two weeks after delivery), they are starting to emerge. By Tuesday when we return, they are out and flying around. We release them to the open air that Thursday (three weeks after delivery). I think I've read in the paperwork that comes with them that they live 2-4 weeks. It's a very short life cycle.
While in the chrysallis, they seem very delicate, but we've had them survive being dropped accidentally (something that can happen with curious preschoolers). This last spring we had several that would start shaking anytime you moved their net. We read that was a natural reaction to keep themselves safe in the wild.
I've only one year gotten to see them actually hatching from hibernation. It's very cool to see the chrysallis start wiggling wildly, then see the butterfly start to emerge from the broken shell. Ours are painted lady butterflies, and they leave behing a trail of red dye when they hatch. They come out and just hang on, gently flapping their wings to dry them out before they can fly.
o i love!!
i just played with praying mantis eggs.. really we
ordered them .. attached them to a stick
waited a couple weeks & wala millions of the little guys for the garden...
how fun!!
when i was in new york for the parade in nov we stayed at our friends place right next to the history museum .. on 83rd .. i think it was 83rd... anyways ...what a fabulous place!!
So glad you asked the questions Sydney. Love your commenter's answers. I didn't know you could buy them and watch the whole process. What a wonderful idea as a gift for someone who would be interested in that; i.e., my grandsons who are older, but I know it would fascinate them.
Thanks to everyone for the info on butterflies. It's amazing how much you can learn if you just ask! :-)
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