The Butterfly Emerges!

Sixteen days after the caterpillar attached itself to the stem and turned into a chrysalis, it has emerged as a butterfly.

The time between these two pictures was only five minutes.  I wish the camera had caught the butterfly in the process of coming out out of the chrysalis.  The camera was taking one picture every five minutes.

In less than 45 minutes the butterfly emerged from the chrysalis, stretched its wings and flew away.

Below is a video of the chrysalis over a one day period.  The interesting part is that the chrysalis moves during the day, flexing back and forth.  This video was made from all of the pictures taken in ten minute increments in one day.

24 hours later!

Wow, look at the changes in only 24 hours!  You can see the outline of the wings forming.  I have changed the frequency on the time-lapse camera to 1 picture every 10 minutes.  I didn't want to disturb that camera any more and will download those pictures once the butterfly emerges.  For now I'm using my digital SLR.

I was picking Passion Butterfly caterpillars off of some passion flower vines when I saw this one on it's way to become a butterfly.  So I set up a time-lapse camera and will try to capture the metamorphosis.

I have programmed the camera to take a picture every hour during daylight hours.  I'll check it to morrow to see how it is doing.

The view from our kitchen!

The tuberous begonias are putting on a great show as they come into bloom.  This is the view from our kitchen.

Tuberous begonias

Tuberous Begonia

Tuberous Begonia

Tuberous Begonia

Tuberous Begonia

Tuberous Begonia

Tuberous Begonia

Panorama of Tuberous Begonias, click to enlarge picture

It's not a tuberous, but its looking great!
B. Barely There