metamorphosis complete!

and on the seventh day... the butterflies emerged!

it was truly amazing to watch.  when i woke up on sunday morning, the chrysalides had turned completely transparent and i knew it was time!  i hurried my mom and sisters through sunday morning market (hurry! my butterflies are coming out! i need to be home).

 a sleeping tiger

remember there were originally four cats we found on thursday?  well, one disappeared on monday (much to my mom's consternation: "you mean there's a caterpillar walking around the house?!?!") only to be found as a butterfly flying around the house on friday (mom thru text: we found the caterpillar, it's a butterfly")!  then of the three left, i missed the first eclosion (was still at the market).  adri was there to witness the second eclosion (which i wasn't able to film correctly - the actual emerging from the pupal case is faster than you would think) and finally the third eclosion... well i have this video to share with everyone.

i hope you enjoy watching this wonderful miracle of life.

later, we released all 3 butterflies into the garden. the male and one female hung around for several hours.  hopefully we (or our neighbors) will get hungry little plain tiger cats in their gardens soon!

drying their wings in the sunshine, female at the back, male in the foreground

get a whiff of  those male pheromones!

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