Mr. Upside Down Finally Hatches

Mr. Upside Down

Mr. Upside Down, the Monarch Butterfly chrysalis we've been watching for the last month finally hatched out on Monday.  This guy was sloooowww.  He took his sweet time about the whole process, from attaching to the fence, to forming the chrysalis, to emerging from the chrysalis and finally to taking to flight.

The female Monarch (Cindy named her "Mona") who hatched out the week before was much more business-like about the process; she hatched out, flexed her wings a few times, and took off and we haven't seen her since.

Mr. Upside Down Attached

Chrysalis

Mr. Upside Down, on the other hand, stayed on the fence for several days before he attached.  Then it took several more days before he began to form his chrysalis.  He took so long about it that we began to think he was dead, but he finally got it done.

Mona hatched out of her chrysalis in 27 days; this guy took over a month.  I started watching the chrysalis last Friday, thinking he might be on the same schedule, but nothing much happened either Friday or Saturday, except that I got very tired of sitting there waiting for something to happen.

I continued to watch because I thought I probably would never get a better chance to see a butterfly emerge than this because of the very accessible position of this chrysalis on the fence.  The third chrysalis is high up in the Bougainvillea and we can barely see it.

The one thing that did happen, however, was that the chrysalis became noticeably darker and more transparent.  In fact, we were able to see the orange and black wing markings forming within the chrysalis.

Wings Forming

The chrysalis looked like a beautiful, glowing jewel whenever the sun was on it.  It also had a row of  little golden dots about a third of the way down from the top and other little gold dots in other places.  As the chrysalis darkened, another row of gold dots formed across the top of the chrysalis.

It's Starting!

By lunchtime Monday it looked like it might happen at any moment, but I was getting very tired of sitting on the overturned bucket and my hand was cramping from holding my camera.  Cindy suggested I get a more comfortable chair from the front porch.  When I brought the chair back, I noticed the chrysalis looked a little different and had in fact started to open.

Here It Comes!

Cindy and I watched in fascination as the new butterfly crawled out of the chrysalis at last.  It clung to the shreds of the chrysalis as its wings unfolded and steadily grew longer and fuller.  

Within just a few minutes the wings, which originally were shorter than the butterfly's body, lengthened  and grew longer than the body.  

He's Finally Out

He hung onto the fence for at least an hour as the wings gradually filled out and dried off.  Then he tried to climb up the fence but slipped and sort of plummeted down onto a potted salvia at the bottom of the fence.  

After a while he flexed his wings a few times, but that was pretty much it for the day--he stayed on the flower pot over night.  He flew off to the Bougainvillea the next day, but didn't venture beyond that.  It was cold, foggy and windy most of the day and he evidently didn't want to venture out into the world.  We began to worry that he might not have enough energy to get going so he could fly off and locate food, but this morning it was warm and sunny again and he was gone.  

It's A Boy!