We had a family work night on May 23d. Tori mowed the lawn, Daddy got the edges of the yard with the weed eater and watered plants, Mommy and Bethi worked on cleaning the car, and Andrew, Abbi and I worked on preparing a bed for planting in. Emmi watched.
Tori called me to come pull up a plant with a Caterpillar on it so she could mow over that spot without killing him. I pulled up the plant, showed the Caterpillar to my helpers, and set him in the lettuce bed, thinking I would take him to the woods behind our house when we were done.
Daddy told me to leave him, he would be fine in the lettuce bed for now. We went inside.
The next day the Caterpillar was not on the Plantain plant it was the night before. No big deal, he moved to another one, I thought.
A few days later, Mommy asked me to get some Lettuce out of the garden so she could make a salad.
I bring her the lettuce. A few minutes later she gasps and starts talking about a Cocoon on her lettuce! She was really grossed out!
I put the Cocoon in a jar, and put the jar in our screened in porch (I love the screened in porch!!!). On Emmi's birthday I went out to check on it, and we had a Common Buckeye butterfly!
Then I started thinking...
I got out my butterfly book that had pictures of all stages of the Common Buckeye, and started some "detective" work...
It was my fault. (At least, it would be REALLY strange if it wasn't.) The Caterpillar that I put in the lettuce bed was a Common Buckeye Caterpillar... The cocoon that Mommy found on her lettuce was a Common Buckeye Butterfly... he must have spun a cocoon early the day after we found it, and I happened to bring in the lettuce he used as the base.
Always lots of excitement around here!
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