Every Crawling Creature Can Fly...

I think, learning with the kids is the most memorable and enriching experience for the parents. In my school days, I had studied the life cycle of the butterfly. But never ever wondered about it. I don't remembered doing any experimentation with open eyes. I had seen eggs of butterflies, had seen the larva and might have seen the pupa and of course the butterflies.. But never in a sequence. I was a OK student in my school. I always had understood the theory but never done anything to verify if that theory was really true. Had never explored anything on my own. May be the teachers, schools and parents never showed anything of that sort. But when my kids ask queries, I would always like to show them a real example, which will be the learning for life time. And they will never ever forget those lessons.

More than the parents, I feel the new generation is very different. They have many questions. They wanted to see it with their eyes. More specifically, my kids have traveled a lot with me in the wild. They love to see the birds, animals and insects. They are never satisfied with the theory. They want to see all these things by their own eyes. So I let them play with insects, birds, snails and other (Not so harmful) creatures. The only message is, not to kill or harm them..

Due to this liberty, many snails, crawling insects have started coming to my home. My daughter used to keep looking at these insects for long hours. 

One fine day she found a quite big green larva in my parent's garden. It was indeed beautiful. She said she wanted to have this as a pet. I am always OK to all non-barking pets and especially those which don't demand my time and efforts.  We brought it home. With kid's observation, I was also able to fulfill my hobby of photography. We searched the net to find the name of this beautiful moth. It was "Oleander Hawk Moth". That time I did not have a SLR camera, but still a good enough for the life cycle study.

Here are few of the photos.

Encounter with Blue Eyes

Thick and Hungry

Lets Start Eating!!

When we found it, it had a lovely green skin with white dots on the side. It had bright Blue eyes, peas like mouth, which was continuously busy eating leaves after leaves. And also had a small sticky yellow tail. 

Very soon we understood that the bright blue mark were not eyes, but are the bright marks gifted my nature for its protection. Due to these marks, it looks bit scary and provide a kind of defense from the enemies. The real eyes are towards the mouth. 

When we decided to bring it home, we were already knowing about its food. So one problem was resolved. We had these leaves in plenty. Once we were sure that we can provide ample food to it and we might be mesmerized by the end product which will fly out of our house, we finalized keeping it with us. With that hope, we kept it in a plate and allow it to crawl around our pot plants. For few days they were just eating leaves after leaves. One day morning we saw that its color has changed to brownish yellow. I thought its going to die, as we might not have provided it with other necessary things which we have not learned so far..

Color Change

I continued clicking photos to keep the record of the changes. I saw that the body of the caterpillar is now becoming sticky and it has started shrinking. The bright marks are also became very dull and the eyes and mouth had turned black.

Sticky

Very soon, it became smaller with very loose skin and had many wrinkles as if it had entered its 80's

Wrinkled

In couple of days, to our surprise, it threw off its mouth and eyes and even few of its front legs. The sticky substance had covered all its body and this thin layer was covering the inside changes...

Pupa Formation

We were curious to see whats next, when will it turn into a moth, how would it get its wings.. I continued taking the daily photos of this pupa. It was changing color as follows..

I Don't Need These Crawling Legs

Brighter Pupa

Wings Formation Within

Day by day it became darker and darker. One day when we came home from office, we saw that the pupa was broken from one end and there is no moth inside it. The remains was empty with some creamy liquid left in it. 

We were aware, that moths are nocturnal and will not leave this place so easily. It was getting darker and window had a slight slit for it to fly away easily. I thought, we missed it and it has gone.. But we still searched all over the room. And we found it behind the curtains. It was just too beautiful. It has that velvet like wings and awesome design, which made all of us very happy. I took lot of shots of this lovely moth before we let it find its own path in the dark night..

Break-free

Oliender Hawk Moth

The Pattern

Post this episode, we have seen these moths multiple times, we had lot many pets as the moth lays eggs on the plant in my parent's garden. We used to find these larva over and over and kids observed their life cycle till they fly out from our window. 


Part 2 -

Few days back we went to a butterfly garden at Sahakar Nagar and saw many butterflies in there. We Spent 2-3 hours with kids and took many photographs. While coming back we were thinking that, there are so many butterflies around us and we have not seen the life cycle of any of those. May be the larva of these butterflies are smaller in size and much camouflaged with the leaves, so we might not have ever seen these. On the way, we saw a beautiful plant there bearing bright colored flowers. It was dispersing its seeds with wind. It was a beautiful plant with colorful red and yellow flowers. I picked up few seeds and planted those in my window garden. In few days they grew up and I also had a lovely blossom. This plant is common in the region and due to its yellow and red color, its called as हळदी कुंकू. With this plant, I think, I brought a mini habitat for the butterflies as well. I had seen many butterflies pollinating these flowers.

But post first blossom, I saw many of the leaves are eaten up by insects and the plants were as good as leafless. That morning while watering the plants, I saw 3/4 lovely caterpillars. Those were colorful and were the cause of making my plants leafless.

We took 3 of these caterpillar and kept it one plate with lot of food. Again my daughter was instrumental in finding the name of the caterpillar. It was the Plain Tiger Butterfly. A new experiment started with these new creatures. 

Eating Leaves

Lovely Colors

These were smaller in size as compared to the moth. They were moving briskly, so had to keep these into a container from where they won't go out. 

Very soon they got to the top of the container and started secreting the sticky substance around itself. It was stuck to the roof of the container with that stick excrete. Now it was swinging at the top of the container and started revolving around itself. This was a life time experience to see the pupa formation.

Pupa Formation

The photo below shows the sticky threads and you could see the rear end stuck to the lid of the container..

Sticky Silk

In few days the pupa was created. The process was almost the same as the moth. The worm has thrown away its front legs, eyes. To our surprise one pupa was greenish in color whereas the other was pinkish. These were smaller than half of the size of the worm. It had a golden and black ring towards one end. We could not figure out the reason behind the different colors of this pupa. I thought may be the species are bit different. But that was not the case. Both the butterflies emerged out of these were Plain Tiger butterflies. I am not sure if its male and female differentiation. That question is still unanswered. If you know, please comment on this blog to spread that knowledge.

Pupa

The Golden Ring

This time we were even more luckier to see it emerging out of the pupa. I tried to record the video of its first few steps when it had a very weak wings and was unable to fly. Those wings were also not completely unfolded as those were wound inside the pupa. But its color was vibrant and matches with that of Tiger, and hence the name..

Every Crawling Creature Can Fly...

But within a day, it restored the power in its tiny wings and decide to see off all of us to test the nectar of the lovely flowers and pollinate the next generation flower plants around.  
  

Plain Tiger.. Ready to Fly

By exploring these 2 different worms, a motivational thought came to my mind. May be Every Crawling Creature of Today Can Fly Tomorrow...