Monarch Caterpillars

At the start of the term Room 10 was given a swan plant. It had three baby caterpillars on it. We have been watching them closely as they have been growing. They are very hungry and have eaten all the leaves from the swan plant so Mrs Stantiall brought some pumpkin in for them to eat. We discovered that the caterpillars had been nibbling away on the pumpkin over the weekend and had grown even bigger.

This morning we noticed that two of our caterpillars were clinging to the stem of our swan plant. This one has attached itself to the stem by using a little white spot of mucus. It is beginning to curl up. We are watching it closely to see how long it takes to form a cocoon around itself.

We were surprised when we came back from morning tea this morning to find that our second caterpillar was going into a cocoon. It was a very pale green colour. The caterpillar was still working on forming his cocoon because he was still wriggling as he made the cocoon form around himself. When we came back into the classroom after lunch Charlyse noticed that he had stopped wriggling and now the cocoon looked darker.

This morning we found a cocoon in the garden on the underside of a leaf. We discovered when we looked closely that we can see the new monarch butterfly inside. He is still tucked up inside the cocoon but we can see him. We are wondering how long it will take him to hatch out. Will he wait until we have gone home today or will he still be like this tomorrow.