Remember our caterpillar?

Admiring the chrysalis
Originally uploaded by fylliska.

When we came back from our trip, we found that our caterpillar (June 30) had turned into a green and shiny gold chrysalis. Today the butterfly emerged! It is a Pavlinii glaz Inachis io. I should probably know what that is in English, but I don't. I'm going to get our English butterfly book out. . . OK, it's a Peacock butterfly. Unfortunately, the photos didn't turn out too well. In this one below you can at least see the beauty of the colors. I have another one that shows the pattern, but the color isn't as good. If anyone wants to see that one, let me know, and I'll send it to you (Dad ).

Jaan was very excited by this new creature in his jar. I don't know if he made any connection between the caterpillar, chrysalis, and butterfly, but we did talk about it, and I showed him the empty chrysalis. Maybe he understood. If not, I'm sure we'll be doing this again next year, and by then he'll get it. For now it was just an exciting adventure. He was pretty upset when we let the butterfly out of the kitchen and watched it fly away. Now he keeps looking on the balcony for his "bird" and waving goodbye.

Originally uploaded by fylliska.