Yepee!!!!! Monarch Chrysalis!!!!! - Danaus plexippus

Moving your Monarch Chrysalis

Over the last couple years I have photographed the lifecycles of several Monarchs starting with finding the very small white eggs (which looks something like an iridescent ribbed cantelope)about the size of the head of a common pin. They are only laid on the underside of a leaf of a Milkweed plant. We would cut the plant and put it in a vase in the kitchen window to watch it hatch as a very small 1/4" long white caterpiler and grow into their destinctive and impressive 3 to 4",long black, white and yellow striped monster. They can seemingly eat nearly all the leaves off a (milkweed) plant in a day. If you to were to look very closely at the top of the chrysils with a very good magnifying glass you might be able to see that as a caterpiler it placed a blanket/layer of sticky silk threads to the bottom of the door. In the center of that blanket, it put what might be described as a spaghetti ball of silk threads. Into that ball it has pushed a special connector on its top end that looks and acts very much like Velcro. They usually perfer to place themselves on the bottom of a Milkweed leaf as it tends to give them better camouflage. They can be dislodged from or removed, but their system of silk threads(stronger then steel?) and the velcro-like connector mostly keeps them safely and strongly attached but still able to move or flex in the wind and weather.

… Michael A. Traxler, 4 September, 2009 - 11:57am

Linking

why is this linked to the other image?

… John R. Maxwell, 4 September, 2009 - 11:42am

I had left that picture befo

I had left that picture before( a week or so ago) on this web site,and spoke about that Monarch.I am very sure that,that is the Monarch that left the chrysalis behind. I would see that Monarch almost every day coming to my garden to get on the weed planted there. The same Monarch .

… Laura Porter, 4 September, 2009 - 11:50am

Can't be

unless it is changing BACK into a caterpillar! Plus they all pretty much look alike unless it had a distictive wing tear or something. I unlinked the images.

… John R. Maxwell, 4 September, 2009 - 11:56am

Wait a minute? I meant... may

Wait a minute? I meant... maybe,just maybe ..that Monarch laid the egg here? That became the caterpillar, that the chrysalis came from?

… Laura Porter, 5 September, 2009 - 1:41pm

Oh!

Please, still don't link unless you KNOW, not maybe.

… John R. Maxwell, 5 September, 2009 - 3:36pm

Got ya!... Neato!!!!!!!!!!!

Got ya!... Neato!!!!!!!!!!!!!

… Laura Porter, 4 September, 2009 - 11:58am

You can cut the screen

If you cut around the chrysalis, leaving a wide margin, you can lift out its piece of screen and move it to a more convenient place where you'll see the butterfly when it comes out. Just don't change its orientation. That is, leave the screen horizontal so the chrysalis hangs from it pointing the same way it does now. We have a swallowtail chrysalis that started on the screen ceiling of its container outdoors. I cut out a square around it and placed the screen over a wide-mouth jar.

The jar is now on a shelf in the dining room. If the chrysalis were outside, it'd get rained on in winter. I wonder, should we wet it down later in the year? And should it be in a colder place than in the house?

… R. Berg, 4 September, 2009 - 11:15am

That was something I was wond

That was something I was wondering about? I am asuming with rain that won't be a problem? I would like to know that! We have a chance of rain here in two days. Maybe someone will help us with that answer here? Bye the way, The butterfly attached the egg to the metal part of the screen,so I can't cut it out.I will just have to try to see it out side I guess? I could bring the whole screen inside,but she may be gone and loose in the house one morning. Then oops, not good!!!

… Laura Porter, 4 September, 2009 - 11:34am

if it falls intot he jar when

if it falls into he jar when it comes out and you dont notice it takes less than 15 minutes to ruin the wings..so be very careful of jars. i learned the hard way! i overwinter pupae in the pumphose where the weather feels like natural.in spring i leave the door open and they eclose at the correct time.
and yes she could bring it in the house and set the screen frame someplace, but near something it can crawl up on if it falls off the crysalis..they sometimes do. her monarch wont overwinter, it will eclose in a few days and head south soon.

… Edna Woodward, 4 September, 2009 - 11:31am

Somewhere else, then

Been reading about anise swallowtails. I think it'll overwinter as a chrysalis and eclose in spring when flowers are there for it. Sometimes they wait an extra year or more. There's a record of one that eclosed after seven years.

We can put it in the garage, which isn't heated, but cats and raccoons can get in. Something might play with it or eat it if there's no jar. I also want to take its picture as an adult. So we'd better attach the piece of screen to a mammal-proof container with butterfly furniture in it.

… R. Berg, 4 September, 2009 - 1:56pm

Uh, never mind about the garage

I checked the jar after posting. Surprise! The butterfly was in it, upside down, clinging to the screen. I took the screen off the jar. The wings didn't look damaged. At first the butterfly just climbed around and didn't fly well when it tried. I carried it outside and held it in the sun for a few minutes. Then I held it where it could climb onto the big buddleia to finish perfecting its wings, and it flew up and away onto a neighbor's tree.

So much for that story about overwintering as a chrysalis.

… R. Berg, 4 September, 2009 - 2:30pm

Wonderful!

… Laura Porter, 4 September, 2009 - 5:53pm

So... I don't mean to sound d

So... I don't mean to sound dumb but..... I am...... I should bring it inside? If it hatches it will hatch in the house and I may never find it again? I live in Indiana and it is off and on still warm here. It will rain too off and on? I would like to leave it where it is... Should I trust that? Let it be where it is? Where does it have the best chance? I certainly don't mind getting up every morning and checking on it to see if I can get pictures of it opening. I just want it to live!

… Laura Porter, 4 September, 2009 - 11:45am

its fine. it'll turn dark, an

its fine. it'll turn dark, and youll start to see the butterfly in it the night before it hatches, they usually hatch in the mornings.

… Edna Woodward, 4 September, 2009 - 10:38am

Thanks!!!!!!!!

… Laura Porter, 4 September, 2009 - 10:43am