The Very Hungry Caterpillar

Now that I'm finally finished with the Christmas posts I can catch you up with the past 2 1/2 weeks. We got back to Hawaii on Sunday, December 28 around 3:30 pm. As soon as we got home Andrew and I went into the back yard to see how the plants, which were still in their pots at this point, had fared the weather for 2 weeks alone. We had some storms in Hawaii with gale force winds while we were away, so I was worried. They were all there, just turned over. When I picked up my tangerine tree, it looked AWFUL! Something had chewed it to pieces! The whole top half of the tree was all twigs. So I started searching for the culprit. I found him!

I was mad at whatever had eaten my tree until I saw how cute he was.

Then I started thinking that this little guy couldn't possibly be responsible for eating that much, so I continued my search and found that one very hungry caterpillar had already made himself a nice cocoon.

I didn't want to disturb him, but I thought it would be a nice science lesson for Andrew if we captured the other guy and watched him go from lil green worm to a big beautiful butterfly. He loves the book "The Very Hungry Caterpillar" and I love butterflies so I scooped him up and put him along with a few twigs from my tree into a clear plastic cup. We covered the top with foil and poked holes so he could breathe.

That night I had to do some research because I couldn't remember how long they stayed in their cocoon. (2 weeks) They pig out on leaves and totally gorge themselves until they can't eat anymore. Then they make their cocoons. I didn't know how long this lil guy had been eating, but when we woke up the next morning, he was already a cocoon! Two weeks to the day later, I happened to walk by and notice that we had a butterfly. When I first saw him, his wings were all shriveled up like he had just hatched. Before I could get back with my camera, they were already filled out this much...

I didn't want to hinder his progress, so I carefully helped him to a branch, where he continued to dry his wings.
Here he is opening his wings for the first time. Isn't he BEAUTIFUL!
I read that it takes about 30 minutes before they'll fly away, but we were in a hurry and had to go, so we missed that part. But I did see him flying around the yard 2 days later. So he hasn't flown too far from home!

The next day we were in the yard and I noticed that my tree looked even more destroyed. I looked around and found yet another caterpillar. So we captured him too! That very hungry caterpillar ate my leaves for 5 days before he finally made a cocoon. He is scheduled to hatch on Sunday. I'll keep you posted on that!