Today my fourth butterfly Melinoe ecloded from her chrysalis!! This good girl was an only child, and thank the Gods as I'm sure my rue wouldn't have been able to feed more caterpillars (more info and thoughts under the cut)
(Ignore video quality pls, i had to choose stability this one time lmao even tho it's 1080p it looks so cheap)
Due to the weather and some real crazy wind storms that have happened early January, she along with my rue have been living in my room, prettt much her entire caterpillar phase, and i think it was the main reason why she has been the quickest to develop out of all caterpillars i had, taking 29 days from egg hatching to chrysaling, and then less than two weeks to come out as a fully developed King Swallowtail butterfly!
She was so good the entire process, in my previous post i have photos of her pretty much as a newborn, she wandered about all the branches of my rue and never once stepped outside to the furniture around (that's why i say caterpillars are such chill pets!!), she ate and pooped A LOT, and even set her chrysalis on the host plant (which is mad uncommon, none of the others stayed). I guess she really liked the warmth of my room lol
One thing i had the chance to experince again was hearing the characteristic noise of dry leaves being crushed, the sound (at least these) butterflies make while exiting their enclosure, their chrysalis by the end of the process is basically dry skin that's left behind, and i could hear it from my spot of the room while having earphones on!!!! If you listen closely you can also hear it on the video, right when she's stepping out!
I also got to learn new things, like seeing the absurd speed of which she developed from the day before hatching to the hatching day! Like, these photos are less than 12 hours apart from each other!
From seeing the first o thought "hey, she'll hatch sometime this week!", then i went to sleep and woke up to the certainty that today was the day!
And another thing i learned was that butterflies kind of swim (?) On some sort of liquid inside their chrysalis, this is not a fact nor scientifically proven, but during the wait for the hatch i could notice, through the transparent parts of the shell some bubbles that came from the depths and settled on the "horns" of the chrysalis, the highest point, like they were floating on some liquid. Eventually the liquid seemed to disappear and all that was left was air. One hypothesis i can think of is that the butterfly was on its last stages before the hatch, absorbing the remaining liquids of the chrysalis as, actually proven, when they come out there's no liquid
Really wish i had caught that on camera tho
Finally, i think this was my rue's last dance, the plant is what? 4 years old? Its leaves no longer grow strong as they used to, its stem is darkening up on some spots and yellowing on others, some parts no longer grow anything, and it has two little sapplings that are going well. I'm forever grateful to my plant, she's grown along with me all this time, a faithful company that has given life to 4 adorable babies, allowed me to witness the most beautiful cycle of life i didn't know i needed to see upclose. She still lives on its sapplings, and in my memory, and definetely will still be there on my next rue too, because there's no way I'm living without the possibility of raising my butterflies in the future!
To my Melinoe, who's already out there in the wild, and all the other butterflies that came before her, Bela, Daniela and Cassandra, I'll never tire of shouting to the wind how beautiful life can be when you give that little wobbly caterpillar a chance 💖🐛
I'm so happy to announce I'm a caterpillar mom again!!!
A little after the holidays another king swallowtail left a little egg on my rue, it hatched, the little one is growing strong and wandering about every part of my plant! Look at this pretty girl, I've named her Mel (after Melinoe, from Hades II)
First pic: december 28 2025 (about 2 days old)
Second pic: january 16 2026
Look how much she's grown is less than a month!!!!
Anyways, the last few days there had been really heavy thunderstorms and to avoid her or my plant falling off my windowsill i brought the plant with her inside my room
And the primary motive I'm writing this post is because at the dead of the night i can hear Mel shitting on my floor
Timelapse about 8x sped up of Daniela emerging from her chrysalis. This might be the best shoot i will ever shot in my life, even watching this stunning show with my own eyes I'm so glad to have this video (and the original, about 2:55 minutes) to watch and remember exactly what it was like
One thing I'll never forget though is that i set this plant on my desk next to a makeshift camera setup for the recording, and out of the blue i heard crackling, slow, loud and clear, Daniela breaking her little confinement, my queue to start recording
If you ever wondered what sound a butterfly makes coming out of the chrysalis: it's crunchy, the chrysalis is a literal dry shell that sounds like autumn leaves crackling as you step on them
Today the journey comes to an end, my journey raising these caterpillars that is
Cassandra (hatched on June 19th, released June 20th), Daniela (hatched and released on September 13th, but taken flight on the 14th) and Bela (hatched and freed on October 17th)
It's official, 100% of my caterpillars made it through and became butterflies 🥹
My windowsill feels so empty now, and i can't help but worry about them out there in the wild, but nature follows its course perfectly.
I'm already beyond happy to have taken care of them since day 1, maybe made their lives a tad bit easier, but above all I'm in awe to be able to witness one of the most amazing cycles a living being goes through
When i was little there was a butterfly chrysalis hanging from next our street gate. Everyday, when i was going and coming from school, i walked by it and wondered what would come out of it. One day the chrysalis was empty, the butterfly hatched and flew away before i could ever land eyes on it. More than 10 years later, about 5 months ago the universe gave me another chance, and now i return all these gifts back, fully grown and majestic after having witnesses their hunger, their metamorphosis, their emerging and their first flights
Can't wait for the next generation of caterpillars, rummaging through my plants now will always hold a tiny bit of hope they will be there 💛🦋🐛
I've ordered one hibiscus plant to have at hand when the butterflies would eventually hatch and my lovely cousin gifted me three (GIANT) plants, like more than a meter tall
They've arived with the root system wrapped in plastic like an actual tree sappling and today I've finally moved them into vases with plenty of fresh vegetal soil and bonemeal!
The flowers however have been opening even before the transplant, the first one was the orangy red followed by the pink and white one, and today the yellow blossomed, these are literally my fav color palette!
So lucky as i mentioned to my cousin whatever color would do seen as i wanted them exclusively to keep and attract butterflies
To be honest i was never much of a flower person, all my plants before the hibiscus were leafy and herbs, the one flower i would grow if it was possible is the lily, I'm genuinely in love with its fragrance, but unfortunately they belong to critical cold weathers :/
The hibiscus however secured a solid second place, these flowers as truly something else, their beauty is stunning and the fact they bloom all year around is fantastic, i can't wait to get a steam to plant and try to keep at my windowsill 🌺🌺🌺
Ngl I'm trying not to panic that the butterflies have not ecloded yet. it's not the warmest in here right now, lots of sources say they could outlive the winter if necessary and their chrysalis look fine, there's even some light spots where the wings are supposed to form, so yeah, hoping everything is okay
But also I'm often caught thinking how this experience was nothing like i expected in the beginning
I found one caterpillar on my plant and my first thought was to try and take her out of it because that's my plant, i didn't even know an insect could eat from it until that point. After realizing what the deal was i decided to open myself to the experience, even after knowing there were three instead of one. I wanted butterflies
However, the process turned out incredibly funnier than i expected, the tiny caterpillars were so adorable to watch, the more they grew my interest did so too, the way they changed and grew so quickly, it was nice to open my window and chit chat with them every morning
And even if there was no close contact (I'm not a fan of things crawling on me, and caterpillars were a taboo for most of my life so I'd always rather observe them in surfaces that were not my hand) or no different activities (just watch for them not to leave the main plant) they turned out to be amazing pets! They were there, they listen, they grow, eat, poop, they're there!!! I garantee you that April Dino who wanted butterflies so bad genuinely would never guess that May Dino would end up missing the caterpillars
I think another big point was also that i would proudly banter to my friends about "my caterpillars", my caterpillars this and my caterpillars that, they were in my plant, with nowhere else to go and also under my care, they were mine! I could say that definitely
However, once those chrysalis hatch, they will not be "my butterflies", obviously, as a matter of speech they will, but objectively no, butterflies belong to the world, even wanting them to stay i couldn't possibly lock them up or cage them just for a selfish desire, they deserve to fly free, taste good pollen, mate and put more caterpillars into the world, and if they desire to visit, my windows are always open
These two months didn't create a girl that desires butterflies, but rather one who would totally get out of her way to raise caterpillars again, who will gladly welcome more eggs to hatch on her plant once it recovers from the first generation, I'd also love to maybe try a different caterpillar next time, monarchs for example are not rare around here
This is so funny to think, these little girls did change me somewhere along the way, hope they'll hatch soon and hopefully have good memories of their time in my rue
This past friday officially marked two weeks the first chrysalis happened, and yesterday (saturday) marked two weeks for the second one, but no butterfly yet
Ngl, on the first week I was a nervous wreck thinking I'd miss when they hatched and they'd fly away before i noticed, but rn I'm a nervous wreck they don't hatch at all, like okay, if I don't see it it's fine, but i want them to hatch healthily
Been reading some forums about how people who actively incubate butterflies and they lose part of them that die as chrysalis and I'm so scared something went wrong and they never get out of there...
It is kinda cold where i live and I've heard, if it's too cold, they might only hatch on spring, but nothing will keep me 100% sane. And it doesn't really help, if the chrysalis turn black, generally a dead pupe signal, but in this case the butterflies that should come out are black lmao
Also the stupidest thing of all is that only now I've found a good triplets name for them, after resident evil 8
Bela, Daniela and Cassandra 🥹
Respectively in names, and in time, 2 weeks, 2 weeks and a day, one week ⏳
My caterpillars are so hilariously individual, like they'd fit perfectly under the Blossom, Bubbles and Buttercup triplets stereotype. The first was straight to the point, the second was so incredibly social and reactive, and the third has been utterly antisocial, minding her own business and avoiding me like the plague
Today the third and last caterpillar has roamed around and settled on a spot of my plant, unfortunately the process started after 4pm so it's likely I'll miss recording her change, but it was so funny to see her initially refusing to ride the spoon i used to move the other two around so easily
She also isn't very pleased with me i think, she had always kept to herself on the furthest away branch of my rue not sparing me a glance and complaining if i ever disturbed her anyhow
But the funniest: I put the two plants with chrysalis and the one with caterpillar inside because it's so very cold outside, and as a matter of awareness I'm checking to see if the caterpillar is still on her plant and not exploring my room (2:31am). She is in the plant, and most likely she's threading her silk as part of the greater plan™, however when i get closer to check she just stops what she's doing and pretends to be asleep LMAO
Sorry queen I didn't mean to invade your privacy, just making sure you won't crawl on my face in the middle of the night
See what i mean?? I checked her just before writing this post, here's proof she was right side up face against stem pretending to honk shoo
And then i went to check one last time before sleep and girlie is upside down
The silly
(I'm actually glad to maybe interrupt her a little because the longer she takes to weave her silk and build her little support rope, the more chances i have that she will go chrysalis by the morning/afternoon instead of dawn and I'll be able to watch wnd record it (my math suggests she will change within 1 day and 4 hours after going lax on her net))
Good news!!!! She ended threading her support net around 11am, not only i was in the room watching her get inside the silk support but my mom was there too and she was so impressed by it (the same mom who have told me to get rid of all caterpillars during all the time she knew about them, now she comes to check on them every day lmao)
Anyway, she relaxed into the net before noon, so if my math is correct she will go chrysalis around 3pm today (may 17th) and I'll have my phone oh so ready to record!
Another thing i forgot to mention is that i ordered an hibiscus that should arrive by monday, the butterflies that hatch by then should be able to eat before parting if they so desire (only one more week with them...)
My math was more or less correct, however this caterpillar was the slowest of the three, she was still 2nd or 3rd instar when her sisters were entering 5th, so it was expected she'd take longer
I spent my entire saturday afternoon and early night last saturday waiting for her to pupate, and ended up setting the plant on my desk so I'd not miss it. She pupated around 10pm that day and, luckily, i recorded it 4k60, but been lazy to render it a second time since the first went out wrong
My caterpillars are so hilariously individual, like they'd fit perfectly under the Blossom, Bubbles and Buttercup triplets stereotype. The first was straight to the point, the second was so incredibly social and reactive, and the third has been utterly antisocial, minding her own business and avoiding me like the plague
Today the third and last caterpillar has roamed around and settled on a spot of my plant, unfortunately the process started after 4pm so it's likely I'll miss recording her change, but it was so funny to see her initially refusing to ride the spoon i used to move the other two around so easily
She also isn't very pleased with me i think, she had always kept to herself on the furthest away branch of my rue not sparing me a glance and complaining if i ever disturbed her anyhow
But the funniest: I put the two plants with chrysalis and the one with caterpillar inside because it's so very cold outside, and as a matter of awareness I'm checking to see if the caterpillar is still on her plant and not exploring my room (2:31am). She is in the plant, and most likely she's threading her silk as part of the greater plan™, however when i get closer to check she just stops what she's doing and pretends to be asleep LMAO
Sorry queen I didn't mean to invade your privacy, just making sure you won't crawl on my face in the middle of the night
See what i mean?? I checked her just before writing this post, here's proof she was right side up face against stem pretending to honk shoo
And then i went to check one last time before sleep and girlie is upside down
The silly
(I'm actually glad to maybe interrupt her a little because the longer she takes to weave her silk and build her little support rope, the more chances i have that she will go chrysalis by the morning/afternoon instead of dawn and I'll be able to watch wnd record it (my math suggests she will change within 1 day and 4 hours after going lax on her net))
Good news!!!! She ended threading her support net around 11am, not only i was in the room watching her get inside the silk support but my mom was there too and she was so impressed by it (the same mom who have told me to get rid of all caterpillars during all the time she knew about them, now she comes to check on them every day lmao)
Anyway, she relaxed into the net before noon, so if my math is correct she will go chrysalis around 3pm today (may 17th) and I'll have my phone oh so ready to record!
Another thing i forgot to mention is that i ordered an hibiscus that should arrive by monday, the butterflies that hatch by then should be able to eat before parting if they so desire (only one more week with them...)
My caterpillars are so hilariously individual, like they'd fit perfectly under the Blossom, Bubbles and Buttercup triplets stereotype. The first was straight to the point, the second was so incredibly social and reactive, and the third has been utterly antisocial, minding her own business and avoiding me like the plague
Today the third and last caterpillar has roamed around and settled on a spot of my plant, unfortunately the process started after 4pm so it's likely I'll miss recording her change, but it was so funny to see her initially refusing to ride the spoon i used to move the other two around so easily
She also isn't very pleased with me i think, she had always kept to herself on the furthest away branch of my rue not sparing me a glance and complaining if i ever disturbed her anyhow
But the funniest: I put the two plants with chrysalis and the one with caterpillar inside because it's so very cold outside, and as a matter of awareness I'm checking to see if the caterpillar is still on her plant and not exploring my room (2:31am). She is in the plant, and most likely she's threading her silk as part of the greater plan™, however when i get closer to check she just stops what she's doing and pretends to be asleep LMAO
Sorry queen I didn't mean to invade your privacy, just making sure you won't crawl on my face in the middle of the night
See what i mean?? I checked her just before writing this post, here's proof she was right side up face against stem pretending to honk shoo
And then i went to check one last time before sleep and girlie is upside down
The silly
(I'm actually glad to maybe interrupt her a little because the longer she takes to weave her silk and build her little support rope, the more chances i have that she will go chrysalis by the morning/afternoon instead of dawn and I'll be able to watch wnd record it (my math suggests she will change within 1 day and 4 hours after going lax on her net))
My caterpillars are so hilariously individual, like they'd fit perfectly under the Blossom, Bubbles and Buttercup triplets stereotype. The first was straight to the point, the second was so incredibly social and reactive, and the third has been utterly antisocial, minding her own business and avoiding me like the plague
Today the third and last caterpillar has roamed around and settled on a spot of my plant, unfortunately the process started after 4pm so it's likely I'll miss recording her change, but it was so funny to see her initially refusing to ride the spoon i used to move the other two around so easily
She also isn't very pleased with me i think, she had always kept to herself on the furthest away branch of my rue not sparing me a glance and complaining if i ever disturbed her anyhow
But the funniest: I put the two plants with chrysalis and the one with caterpillar inside because it's so very cold outside, and as a matter of awareness I'm checking to see if the caterpillar is still on her plant and not exploring my room (2:31am). She is in the plant, and most likely she's threading her silk as part of the greater plan™, however when i get closer to check she just stops what she's doing and pretends to be asleep LMAO
Sorry queen I didn't mean to invade your privacy, just making sure you won't crawl on my face in the middle of the night
it was absurdly lucky i came to check on them and this girlie was wiggling so very gently, like she was breathing very steadily, i kept observing to see if she'd stop and well, she didn't and started wiggling harder! i knew it was time and immediately started recording, the tiktok version below is sped up, while this youtube video is real time and unedited
After a day of wondering around and driving me crazy this chonky girl finally accepted the spot I chose for her!
This one was way more stubborn than her sister, she even tried to climb her sister that is entering pupae state (and made her wiggle wiggle more than she wanted lol). After that i gave up trying to alocate her on the basil plant along with the other and picked an older desert rose sappling i had in other spot, it took a lot of spooning her back and back again to the plant until she ran out of gas me think, and finally picked her spot
Then she spent the entire rest of the afternoon and early night placing her silk, it was so interesting to watch as i didn't watch her sister do it, she was already hanging when i woke up (prev post)
In the photo you can see her half stuck to the stem, backside already glued with the silk she spent the afternoon placing and then braiding the silk for the upper body support, later she'd pass her head through and fix it in her body to finally lay back
This is her after all the work, the silk cord is a bit loose because she's not laying back just yet, the rest is tightly secured amongst her back bumps (i could see it at some point when she wiggled a bit
Now all we have to do is wait for her body to do the magic and shed the larval skin, uuuuuh i miss them already!!
Under the cut there's a video of her silk building + a nasty caterpillar fact i got to see today
Weird old tv effect is due to my phone's camera not syncing with the flashlight frequency
Now for the nasty caterpillar fact: I've read before that, before the wandering phase the caterpillar's body do one last excretion of not only poop but everything the body no longer needs, and after that the caterpillar starts running away from the host plant looking for a comfy spot to hang
Very well, while observing the first caterpillar occasionally wiggling and spasming on her silk support, on the very next vase i saw one big poop fall off from none other than this post's caterpillar, which was nothing new, but as I kept looking at her I saw she spill out A LOT of an yellow fluid from her anus, like it took her physical effort as she shrank down like an accordion to expell the residue, she took an astronomical piss basically
It was gross and fortunately it landed on the soil, as it's some kind of organic matter the plant may use it in some way, there was also a tiny drop still sticking to her ass and it looked like a honey consistency, of course I didn't take a picture because ew, but there's probably one somewhere in the internet in case for some reason you want to see it
But it was also very on point, after resting from the exertion the caterpillar immediately started climbing up, dismissing leaves and waving her uper body around, starting her wandering journey (and robbing me of half my afternoon as i had to babysit her through it lol)
I also don't really know what else other than poop would be so disposable that a creature would make such an effort to piss that hard. She even looked smaller and thiner after that, holy
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