Date: 09/21/2021

Number: 1

Planted 1 butterfly weed, planted 2 ice ballet swamp milkweed, planted 2 soulmate swamp milkweed. The plants were purchased from American Meadows and a monarch caterpillar was munching on one of the ice ballet swamp milkweed plants. I put the monarch caterpillar in my enclosure on my porch outside. The caterpillar is in 3rd instar. Yesterday 09/21/2021 I released my first Monarch butterfly it was a male. I found it eating my butterfly weed. I looked up Monarch butterfly and learned a lot and was upset hearing how much of a decline in the species! I can’t imagine a world without the beautiful Monarch Butterfly so I quickly made an enclosure that caterpillar was found on 09/2/2021 it was 5th instar and on 09/04/2021 it was a chrysalis and it was 16 days until the gorgeous male butterfly emerged in the evening. Due to the butterfly emerging so late I didn’t release until the following day. The butterfly hung out on my roof for about 5 minutes and then off it went. What a cool experience and I was so happy to have success. I learned so much and I am thankful to that 1st caterpillar I named Ace. Ace is hopefully going to breed a lot and successfully migrate!

Oxford, MA

Latitude: 42.1 Longitude: -71.9

Observed by: Katie
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