Date: 09/30/2010

Number: 1

Today was a day for celebrating the arrival of our last monarch butterfly of the season. This last butterfly has made it even though there were times when my fourth grade class thought that it wouldn't survive. It was captured as a very small caterpillar along with eight others who were all about the same size. The other caterpillars thrived and advanced through their stages of growth and development while this little guy wasn't growing much at all. We discussed the fact that not all caterpillars survive in the wild and we learned of some of those reasons. Our little caterpillar slowly grew but he never got as big as our others. Several days before he went into his chrysalis we noticed that our little guy had "frass" (poop) stuck in his rear end. As we watched the caterpillar moved its head several times to look in that direction. It then twisted its body around so that its mandibles could grab a hold of the frass. It tugged at the frass and nothing happened; so it straightened up again and then repeated the process. This time it was able to pull the frass free and it then dropped it before swinging around to continue eating. The kids were totally grossed out!! Eleven days ago he went into his chrysalis. The chrysalis was also much smaller that any others we have had and once again we were concerned. Today a healthy male monarch emerged around 8:15 am. He was tagged as part of the Monarch Watch program this afternoon and we released him at 2:45pm. It was a beautiful, warm, sunny, and breezy day. Our butterfly did not immediately fly away, when we left him he was sitting on a branch of a butterfly bush. We named him "Lucky" and wish him a safe and successful trip.

Clinton, IN

Latitude: 39.7 Longitude: -87.5

Observed by: Christy
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