Last Sunday, after keeping the ‘Painted Lady’ butterflies in our house for a week, we decided to let them go. Ashwini reluctantly agreed to do so. She opened the basket, and to my surprise, picked up the butterflies with her fingers and let them go.







It was a fun project to watch them grow and undergo metamorphosis for about 3 weeks. We were ready to order another batch of caterpillars to start all over again, but found some colorful ones in our yard. We were very excited to find free caterpillars to make butterflies. We decided to wait for them to make cocoons and then, we’ll bring them in. Currently, they are feasting on my redbud tree.





After doing some research, it turns out that these are redhumped caterpillars, Schizura concinna. Unfortunately, they metamorphose into very ordinary looking moths. Next time, I see these caterpillars on the trees, I’ll have to deal with them harshly to protect my tree.