Monar-pillars: Flutter-ers Everywhere!

It has been a couple days and a lot has happened. I currently have 5 butterflies getting ready to leave home. Sadly the butterfly that had a broken wing ended up damaging his wing again (although the repair stayed intact), and now only has about 1/3 of his wing left. The only way he would be able to be released is if he was given a whole new wing. If you know of any naturally diseased butterflies that are good candidates for wing donors my little guy would love to be able to fly off like the rest of his brothers and sisters. But for now he is happily slurping up Gatorade, sugar mixture and fresh fruit, as well as getting his daily walks in the park, weather permitting.

We recently had much cooler weather pass through our area, not unlikely for the end of September, but not ideal weather for monarchs. It was very rainy, cold, and windy. I had tried releasing my first butterfly but she made it apparent that it was too cold for flying as she chose to be very inactive when I took her for a walk through the park, but perked right up when we got home to the 77 degree apartment. So I kept her and the 2 other butterflies that hatched not too long after, hoping that the weather would warm up just a little to get them off and heading to Mexico.

I currently, as of today (2 more hatched making 5), I have 2 females and 3 males. I also have 2 in chrysalis. And of course my patient, who has been doing remarkably well despite the minimal flying ability. I think he really enjoys having the other butterflies around. He loves hanging from the top and pumping his wings with the rest of them.

I also had a caterpillar that I had collected at 1st instar and is now in chrysalis. I had noticed as it became larger that it had an interesting scar-looking mark on its side that even continued through instars. I am curious to see if it has any affect on it becoming a butterfly.