Recently, we have been picking caterpillar after caterpillar off the parsley and dill in our garden.  So far we have, hmmm, I think 11 caterpillars!  Some are small, some are big, and some are in chrysalises!  We had the privilege of watching a few caterpillars turn into chrysalises right before our eyes: the caterpillars hung from a branch or twig for, I don’t know, maybe 24 hours, and then in like five minutes they shed their skin, and there was the chrysalis!

I took a video of this below.

The caterpillars are really easy pets to take care of, but boy do they eat!  That’s pretty much the only thing they’re interested in.  The six caterpillars in chrysalises right now don’t eat (of course!), but the four others are just stuffing themselves.  Every once in a while they shed their skin so they can have room for more food, so they can get bigger, so they can turn into chrysalises, so they can turn into butterflies, so they can lay eggs, so the eggs can hatch, so more caterpillars can stuff themselves!  It’s a never ending cycle.  These particular caterpillars are black swallowtails.  I can’t wait to watch them turn into butterflies, and hopefully I can get a video of that too!

Have you ever kept caterpillars as pets?  Did you get to see them turn into butterflies?

***Allison***