It’s a Girl (Go Girl) AND It's a Boy (Watney)!
My 3rd & Final Update on Our (No Longer Tiny) Little Friends
I have VERY exciting news to report about Big Boy/Go Girl (BB/GG) and Watney, our Queen Butterfly caterpillar friends whose adventures I’ve chronicled here previously. I’m sure 😉 you remember BB/GG was the caterpillar who wandered away from its host milkweed so much that Hubby & I bought more milkweeds to keep BB/GG in place for pupation and Watney was the caterpillar we rescued from being stuck on a cactus.
Our exciting news is that Hubby & I got to watch both BB/GG and Watney emerge as butterflies from their chrysalises! We were also able to definitively determine that the caterpillar formerly known as BB/GG is in fact female (and therefore has been renamed Go Girl) and that Watney is indeed male (and therefore is still named Watney). More on that below*.
Wow—could things get any more exciting in our yard?! 🤩
The first to emerge was Go Girl, with Watney emerging 6 days later. Here are my Perpetual Journal illustrations of Go Girl as a chrysalis and as a butterfly.
We knew our butterflies were getting closer to emerging when their chrysalises became transparent and we could see the wings inside!
❓ Did you know?
The official term for a butterfly emerging from its chrysalis is eclose.
* So how do we know Go Girl is female and Watney is male?
Male Queen Butterflies have a black spot on each hind wing while female Queen Butterflies don’t. You can see this in the photos below of Go Girl and Watney—the blue arrows in the photo of Watney point out the black spots.
What exciting events happen when a butterfly emerges from its chrysalis?
When a butterfly ecloses, it doesn’t fly off right away—it has more work to do!
A butterfly-to-be is positioned head down in its chrysalis, so when the chrysalis splits open at the bottom, the butterfly emerges head first—followed by its wings, thorax and abdomen. Then the butterfly quickly rights itself and hangs on to its empty chrysalis shell.
What I found really amazing watching our butterflies eclose is how round and HUGE their abdomens were at this point, especially compared to their small, folded wings.
After hanging right-side up they started pumping fluids into their wings. Then their wings slowly unfolded and dried out and their abdomens shrunk to a more normal slim shape and size.
This process takes a few hours—which gives nature nuts like Hubby & me an excellent opportunity to get a closer look at our butterfly friends before they fly off, and the time to take some macro photos. Here’s a close-up photo of one of Go Girl’s wings—you can even see the scales on the wings! 🤩
Fun facts: Butterfly wings are covered in hundreds of thousands of tiny scales. Butterflies and moths are classified in the scientific order Lepidoptera which is Greek for “scaled wing”. Wow—the fascinating trivia you learn on my blog!
We doubt that Watney would’ve survived to become a chrysalis, much less a butterfly, if we hadn’t rescued him from being stuck on a cactus. Hubby & I are excited we helped add one more butterfly to the world! Maybe Watney is the “extra” butterfly in the world that flaps its wings and helps reverse our biodiversity crisis!
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Following this story just makes me smile and smile and smile. Full of fun facts to learn and all of it is just beautiful.
Paula, I just LOVE your posts!!! They’re so informative and fascinating. I was amazed at the closeup of wing. WOWZERS!!! I look forward to every Thursday!!🥰!!!