The Bugs in the Backyard: Triumph Over Adversity

I've got good butterfly news today–there was another eclosure, and it was the one butterfly that I thought might not make it.

This is the chrysalis of the caterpillar that fell down from the leaf where it had chosen to become a chrysalis, and because I didn't know what had happened, I just set it aside, away from the other caterpillars, because I thought it was sick. So it was not hanging upside down when it chrysalized, it was sitting on a paper towel. The chrysalis is not shaped quite right, and isn't so smooth. I wasn't sure what to do about it, and I didn't know if the butterfly would even form, and if it did, I thought it might be deformed, too. Well, last night I noticed that the chrysalis color had changed, it was getting dark, and I could see the wings through the clear surface. So, I tied a string around the post it should have been hanging from and hung it up in the enclosure. I figured that in order for the wings to unfold properly it needed to emerge the same way as other monarchs. This morning it looked like this. But the butterfly didn't come out in the morning. The expansion gaps in the chrysalis never expanded. I was starting to think that the butterfly was just not going to emerge...

But some time between 2:00 and 3:00 in the afternoon, I checked the enclosure, and saw this! A perfect butterfly. You can see here that the chrysalis is tied to the top of the enclosure.

This butterfly is a male; there is a black spot on the hind wing, and that is a mark that males have but females don't.

When the butterfly took its first flight it only flew a few feet to this milkweed plant. It found itself a nice spot under a leaf, and as of 9:00 in the evening it was still there. That's not surprising; I have read that butterflies don't eat on their first day, and they can take a while to get used to being a butterfly. Usually they fly up into a tree, but I guess this one was happy with the milkweed plant. We took him outside during a respite in the rain, but given how hard it rained after this, he found a well sheltered place. You can just barely tell where the spot is on this side of the wing; on some males it's more obvious.

Back inside in the monarch enclosure:

There are plenty of other leaves in there, they don't all have to be crowded on one.

This caterpillar has just molted, and is eating the discarded skin.

I wasn't sure I was going to be able to do a bug walk today because of the rain, but there was a break, and I went out with my camera:

Someone who probably enjoyed the rain is this frog–a tree frog, I think. It was about an inch long.

Backyard Bug of the Day:

The goldenrod is coming into bloom, which means the arrival of the insects that like to feed on it, like hairstreak butterflies. I think this is a red-banded hairstreak.

As with most hairstreaks, it doesn't like to show the dorsal side of its wings, even though that is the pretty side. It does rub its wings against each other (I don't know why), which gives a peek at the blue on the other side. This one must be pretty young, because it still has its 'tails.' Butterflies often end up pretty beat up after a while, and it is very common to find hairstreaks whose tails have broken off.