Lepidopterists: Con Men

One of our Monarch caterpillars

I love butterflies. I think the transformation from caterpillar into butterfly is one of the coolest miracles of nature. I wanted to share this experience with my two boys, and being too cheap to purchase a kit, went on a nature hike to collect milkweed leaves and Monarch caterpillars.

I decided to look online for various butterfly kits, just out of curiosity. After reading many of the kit descriptions, I came to a conclusion. Lepidopterists are con men. Or amazing marketers- same difference. To other moms, the process is amazing. But there are a few facts you ought to know about butterfly larvae, and they're not all pretty.

The Kit Claim:

Behold the amazing caterpillar as it grows!

Yes, the caterpillar grows at an amazing rate. What the marketing literature won't tell you, however, is that these little larvae molt quite frequently. Then they turn around and eat their old skin. Apparently, caterpillars find themselves delicious.

Also, not all caterpillars are cute. Swallowtail larvae look like bird poop for the first few stages of their lives. Lepidopterists call these stages "instars." This is a very cute word for describing how many times your caterpillar has decided to eat its own skin.

Be sure to clean the frass on a regular basis.

Frass? Frass sounds so cute. Frass sounds like something a Fraggle might create. Don't be fooled: frass is caterpillar poop. And these little larvae poop a LOT.

Watch as the caterpillar forms a beautiful jade chrysalis!

Soon your larva (fat from eating leaves and it's own skin) will stop pooping and eating. Then its skin will split open, and a green casing will enclose it. The caterpillar's head case will pop off, often falling to the floor of your container. If you have many larvae, there will be little caterpillar heads all over the place.

The caterpillar will magically transform into a beautiful butterfly!

This part is completely true. The process is magical, and butterflies are beautiful. What actually happens inside the chrysalis, however, is kind of gross. The larva encases itself, and then starts producing enzymes. The enzymes completely dissolve the caterpillar, until it is nothing but liquid. That green chrysalis is holding larva soup. The butterfly rebuilds itself from something akin to stem cells in the bath of dissolved caterpillar.

While the butterfly is assembling itself from the liquid larva it once was, it is trapped in the chrysalis. This means there is no place for *ahem* waste products to go. When the butterfly ecloses, there will be a little puddle of brown goo that comes out with it. You can guess what this puddle is- days' worth of butterfly poop.

Watch as your butterfly emerges, and set it free.

This part, as far as I can tell, does not omit any important information a mom might want to know about raising butterflies. The butterfly will emerge, pump vital fluids into its wings, dry out, and fly away to a happy nectar-filled life.

We are eagerly waiting for our own caterpillars to finish eating themselves, pop off their heads, form a chrysalis, dissolve into goop, and become amazing butterflies.