Jerry's Friend Maria

Butterfly report for today - Jerry is a sweetheart and is doing great. Today he got a friend. We had three eclose today. Two were males, and they turned out great, but the chrysalis on the right here...

I was right there when it was emerging, but then it wasn't getting out... it was stuck and flailing it's arms... I put down the camera and tried to help. I put my finger there so it could grab it, but that didn't work. It was really stuck tight inside. Other times the chrysalis is open enough that I can pull the chrysalis gently off of it, but this one was really stuck, I tried to get it's abdomen loose by pushing on it a little bit... we got it out, but it had been stuck for 4 minutes. There was meconium in the chrysalis... it didn't look good to me...

And after a traumatic experience like that, this guy did NOT want to hang upside down and was crawling all over trying to get upright... Then the middle one eclosed...

So I moved the crazy busy one off the branch, hoping it would not disturb the others. It didn't hang though, and it's wings were totally messed up. We put Jerry by him/her for company. 

It stayed on the edge for a bit, but wasn't upside down. When the butterfly that eclosed after it had fully expanded wings, I figured it was too late for it's wings to be saved. 

The kids say it's a female, but we don't really know - it's wings didn't expand enough for us to see if it was a male or female. But they want it to be a female, so I guess it is. I'm glad Jerry has a friend. I suggested the name Jillian, cause Jerry & Jillian sounded kinda cute together. I also said Petunia. The kids have a lot of suggestions. Natalie is calling her Maria, but then she also wants to rename Jerry to be "Tony" like West Side Story. Then they also suggested Romeo and Juliet. I don't know... we're going to be sticking with Jerry, and we'll probably just call the new one Maria, although we should prob choose a gender neutral name. I guess it might not matter, given today's gender fluid world. Maria seemed really weak, and she couldn't walk with her bit heavy crumpled wings on top of her, so I clipped hers too. I fed them watermelon juice and banana nectar. 

So we'll see how this goes! Two pet butterflies. I'm sorry they can't fly away, but hopefully they can have a full life as crawling insects. We'll do our best to take care of them. I need to go take care of my biological children now. Katharine, are you feeling neglected?

Haha, baby selfies! She's so cute! So, yeah, there was a bit of butterfly drama today. Other monarch counts: I have 31 eggs, Mel came up and returned the van, and she took 2 eggs down for herself to mother, and I also gave her 3 chrysalides - one for her and two for a friend of hers who loves butterflies. It's fun to be able to share the love.