Forming the Chrysalis: Painted Lady Butterflies

Well 2 of the 5 Painted Lady Butterflies have already "made" their chrysalis this morning. Two more are hanging upside down now on the lid, and the 5th one is just hanging out on the side of the container. The literature that came with the caterpillars said that it will take about 1-2 days to form the chrysalis and 7-10 to emerge from it. So we are going to move all of what we can on Saturday (day 3) to the butterfly habitat.

We knew the process had started this morning. When I woke up at around 7 am I asked Web-Princess if she checked on her caterpillars yet this morning. She said no but I will. Web-Princess and Hubby, who was finishing up getting ready for work, checked them out and seen that 2 of them were already hanging upside down and the one was just wiggling really fast. Hubby said let's move them (to the butterfly habit). I had to tell him NO, it's to early they are still caterpillars. We have to wait until they are in a chrysalis to move them.

DH asked why was he shaking like that and I naively said he's spinning his chrysalis. Seeing it would take some days, we just went about our business and when we looked again at about 8:30, this morning, the chrysalis was completely form and the second one had started on his. It was at the time we also observed that 2 more caterpillars and made their way to the top and started to hang as well.

Some things we observed at that point was the completed chrysalis had a "fuzzy" thing next to it where it was hanging from the jar. The one that was working on his chrysalis had it started down the bottom towards it's mouth. What is going on? What is the fuzzy stuff? I thought they spinned their chrysalis? I know I got this idea from school, teachers, or someone as I was growing up.  We could tell this fuzzy stuff was caterpillar skin. We were just confused why it was outside they chrysalis. Not only that but I was confused on why the other one was starting his chrysalis at his mouth.

So I went searching and found this video on Youtube:

I then dug a little deeper and found this information on Earth's Birthday Project:

The caterpillar finds a safe place to rest. With a silk thread that comes out of a hole just below its mouth (spinneret), the caterpillar spins a silk pad to attach to. The caterpillar hangs from this pad. Soon, the caterpillars’ skin splits open, from head to abdomen, revealing a shiny green case underneath—the chrysalis.

So that fuzzy stuff we seen was indeed shed skin and the painted butterfly does NOT spin a chrysalis!

We are still waiting for the aquasaur eggs to arrive.

Painted Lady Butterflies and Aquasaurs

Our painted lady caterpillars arrived today. Last year Web-princess received at butterfly habitat for butterflies. We finally order the caterpillars. They are here today! There are 5 baby-baby caterpillars in the jar. They aren't moving and if I didn't know any better I would say they were dead!

The literature that came with the container stated that it was normal for them to seem like they are dead at first. If they don't become more "lively" within the next 7 days then we need to call insect lore and get replacements.

We also order a replacement set of Aquasaurs. Superstar enjoyed them the first time so much so we are trying it again. The replacement set should be here shortly too. Aquasaurs are a Uncle Milton Industry product and I was able to order a replacement kit via Uncle Milton's Site.

Aquasaur Gone!

Well we woke up this morning to discover that our little Aquasaur is dead.

At first we didn't think any would hatch and the pack was a dud, because there wasn't any swimming around within the time frame the kit gave us.

Then on June 14th we were surprised to see this fairly large Aquasaur swimming around. Looking back we estimate that she was there for about 1 week prior to our discovery.

This Aquasaur shed it's skin several times and even laid eggs for us. We did find a way to harvest the eggs, but we lost them. We placed them on our window sill to dry out and a big gust of wind came and blew them over, so now we will have to order new eggs.

She lived for about 35 days! Which is right in line with what our little kit said. It said they would live for 30-90 days.

Aquasaurs Eggs!

As you may know DS (8) was given an Aquasaur kit for his birthday. We thought we had bad eggs, duds, until we were surprised to see one lone Aquasaur swimming around in the tank. We name that lone Aquasaur Spectacular.

Since we found him her we have been taking care of it like we are suppose too. Feeding it, changing the water regularly, etc. Well today when I went to change its water I noticed a few eggs. Perhaps, we will have new aquasaurs soon!

New Aquasaurs? Are you crazy? You just have one Aquasaur!! Well as I explain in the one post Aquasuars are really Triop Longicaudatus. Triop Longicaudatus can reproduce by parthenogenesis.

Parthenogenesis is an asexual form of reproduction found in females where growth and development of embryos occurs without fertilization by a male.

We have eggs so we will see what happens...

First shedding, Now the possibility of parthenogenesis.

EDIT ADD: I just realized that the eggs have to FULLY DRY OUT before they even have a chance to hatch! How do I collect the eggs? Where do I store them so they will dry out? Think, Think, Think....

Aquasaurs Shed!

While DS was feeding his aquasuar spectacular he said "Mom I think spectacular has grown". I took a peek sure enough he did grow. Not only that but we noticed his "old dead skin" near by. Yep, Aquasaurs shed their skin. Well it's really not it's skin. It's the aquasaur (triops longicudatus) exoskeleton.

I took a minute to explain to my DS how exoskeleton means the bones are on the "outside". So what Spectacular did was shed his old bones. Okay I know it's not bones, but I'm explaining things for the first time to a 8 year old so I wanted to keep it simple. DS face turn all sour and he said "That's discussing. Interesting, but discussing!"

Aquasaurs: Spectacular

Back in Mid-May we had the kids double birthday party. We got our son aquasaurs and our daughter meat-eating plants. Both were kits. For the aquasaurs we were given eggs and for the plants we were given seeds. Of course seeds take time to grow, so were weren't expecting instant results. With the aquasaurs we were expecting to see little aquasaurs in 1-3 days.

When you set up the aquasaur kit you use 1/2 of the eggs. So we put in the first 1/2 waited about 6 days and after seeing NO results we added the other 1/2 and waited 6 days still no results. We figured we got a bad set of eggs and told the DS I would order more eggs to try again when I order DD her caterpillars. (She also got a butterfly kit for her Birthday).

Well I haven't order new eggs yet and I haven't clean out the aquasaur tank. It's been on my to do list. Well just now DS noticed that he has an aquasaur in his tank! I have no idea how long it's been there! So I'm not sure if it's going to "live" much longer of if we have killed it with shock! As soon as we noticed him we removed some of the icky water and put in fresh water. We also added a small bit of food. Like I said we don't know how long he's been there!

We should have seen movement and animals the first week of June and like I said we saw nothing then. So now with it being mid June who knows. Maybe they hatched and we just couldn't tell. Or maybe this one is a late bloomer! LOL. I'm just glad that I didn't clean out the tank now. LOL

Either way we know he's here now and perhaps we shouldn't have wrote them off so soon! For my DS sake I hope this little aquasaur that DS named Spectacular will live for a few more days at least!!! Below is a video of the little aquasaur narrated by me. (So for all those that have been wanting to hear my voice now you can LOL)

Kids and techonology

If your kids are anything like mine having all those electronics is a huge deal. They want the PS2 (or 3), Wii, Nintendo DS, PSP, laptops (of their own), cell phones, digital cameras (of their own), PDA, the list goes on and on. Many of the things that my kids wanted were just not affordable for us. So what's a mom to do? After all it's their B-day. (Well DD was last month and DS is next month, but we are celebrating their B-day today at the local children's museum.

Well I went to our local toysrus store and starting hunting. I found these things called ichat text messengers. They are text messengers, alarm clocks, calculators, schedulers, and walkie talkies. They also hold things like telephone numbers. I try to find the ones I bought on toysrus website, but I was not able to. The cost was $25 for the pair. Here are the kids sitting on the couch texting each other.



Now they do not use the web or anything like that. They can only text each other! However the kids LOVE them! They call them their PDA. We really don't know what the range on the texting is, but the walkie talkie range is pretty good. Good being it didn't seem to matter where they were in the yard they could hear each other. (Keep in mind we have an 1/2 acre lot)

DS also asked for goldfish! I really didn't want to go that route but for $20 I found Aquasaurs! I'm sure you remember sea monkeys... Aquasaurs are a long those lines. The kit came with eggs that we get to hatch and watch grow. They based on the picture on the box kinda look like goldfish so DS was impressed!

DD loves plants. So I got her Carnivorous Creations. It also was about $20. With Carnivorous Creations you get to grow meat-eating plants. She's so excited about this as well. We set it up today, but have to keep some of the seeds in the refrigerator for the next 6 weeks. Weird I know, but that's what the instructions told us to do.