Sunday, September 20, 2009

The Circle of Life...Interrupted


Recently I've been keeping track of our own little "Joanny Saggy" hanging outside our window. Today it came out of its chrysalis and was a beautiful monarch butterfly. Yesterday I noticed there was a praying mantis also and I thought, "How wonderful, I don't see those very often." But then it went away. Today I saw it again hanging around the butterfly and I started to wonder if it was planning on eating my butterfly that I've been waiting to see. So I did some research and sure enough, praying mantises eat butterflies! I made Tom get a cup and take away the praying mantis! I know you are not supposed to help a butterfly out of its chrysalis because that is how it gets strength and if you help it, then it will die because it will not be strong enough to fight off predators or fly away. I hope I didn't make it weaker by taking away its first predator! But I just couldn't see all my hard work waiting around for it being wasted on that praying mantis!
The praying mantis "preying" on my wonderful butterfly!

3 comments:

  1. Cool cool cool cool cool! Wish I had one of those to watch....and good for you. Take that predator away when it is young. Let it gain strength so it can fend for itself later. Hey, you learned your first parenting lesson!!!! hehehehe Thanks for a fun post and cool pics!

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  2. Becca, I found you!!! I'm so glad you are doing well and enjoying life as usual :) I lost track of your email address, but you can find me on facebook or my blog. Send me your email sometime! Loves, Kassandra

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  3. Haha, that reminds me of me :)
    I was driving and I saw a tortoise right in the middle of the road. It was raining pretty hard (it was when all the flooding started here) and I came to a screeching halt, grabbed the tortoise and put him in the seat next to me. Then I took him home and put him in our yard, so maybe a saved him for another day or two :)

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