It's a Girl!!!!!

I wanted to post these pictures of the life cycle of a butterfly! I am so excited because we have had this butterfly milkweed plant in front of our house for a couple of years now...Sierra received this little plant from school one year and every spring we seem to get caterpillars and some beautiful Monarch butterflies from that plant. Now it has grown into a very tall plant that has practically taken over the area it was originally planted in, right in front of the garage. This year, we actually saw three caterpillars...one very tiny one, one medium-sized one, and one super large one on the plant the same day. Then, a few days later, Chandler discovered a chrysalis that had already hatched hanging on one of the green bushes near our front door. Next to that one, we then were excited to find a green chrysalis still awaiting its final stages of growth! Scott decided to clip the tree branch that it was hanging from and he put it into a large glass mason jar so that we could observe it while inside our house. I have to say that this is the first time I have ever actually watched the entire process unfold in front of my very eyes. We found the chrysalis on Saturday. I wasn't sure exactly how long it may take for us to see if we really would hatch a butterfly successfully? Over the next 72 hours, we were excited and anticipated the arrival of our new Monarch butterfly! What caught my eye at first was the green chrysalis which had distinct gold dots placed ever so carefully along the outside of the chrysalis in a pattern. It truly looked like someone had hand-painted liquid gold onto this little thing!

You can see in the first photo what the chrysalis looked like on Sunday. The beginnings of the butterfly colors were starting to show through the green chrysalis. The second photo was taken two days later, on Tuesday. As you can clearly see, the chrysalis was no longer green and was now clear. You can see the entire butterfly through the membrane. It was as if it was just ready to pop out of there! Sure enough, within about 10 minutes of me taking those photos, the butterfly did emerge from his cocoon! It was truly amazing! I was so intrigued at the whole process that I stared at the butterfly while in the jar for about 30 minutes straight! I was so impressed with the intricate designs, the white dots, clear black lines, and beautiful shades of orange throughout its body and wings! How could anyone deny the existence of a God who is the creator of all things? This kind of detail on such a small insect in nature is not simply some fluke! Only God could be so concerned about creating such beautiful creatures with such intricate designs!

After Scott came home from work to see the butterfly, we took it out of the jar and got some great photos of it opening and closing its wings while sitting on the bush outside the front door. It didn't take long for the butterfly to figure out how to fly and eventually as the night went on, she did fly away. Upon doing some more research, I discovered that it must have been a female butterfly we had! I saw photos online of a male and female Monarch butterfly. Apparently, the males have two distinct black marks along the outside of their wings in the middle. Also, the males have much thinner black lines and markings on their wings. The females have very dark and thick black lines, as you can see in the picture above of our little butterfly. She also did not have the two distinctive black dots on the lower wings. I am just really surprised, excited, and amazed that God provided a homemade science lesson for the kids on what happened to be their very last day of school! He even waited until the late afternoon when the kids were home from school for the butterfly to emerge and we all got to watch! What a cool experience it was! Summer school at the Williams house is now officially in session...LOL!!