The Journey of a Butterfly
By Lisa Durchik
PLOP! "What's that? Where am I?" A little white egg had landed on a bright green leaf. "My mom must have laid me here, but what I am? Am I a lion? A bird? I am an egg of some sort." The little white egg lay there pondering about what it could possibly be when all of a sudden....CRACK! The egg began to split open.
A tiny, worm like creature emerged from the egg. "I'm now a caterpillar!" The tiny creature said. "Let's find something to eat! I'm hungry!" The little caterpillar began crawling on a leaf until it found the perfect spot. MUNCH! MUNCH! MUNCH!
The caterpillar began to eat the leaves from a milkweed plant. "This tastes good. I want some more!" he mumbled as he continued to eat.
As the caterpillar continued to eat, he soon realized he was growing bigger and bigger. His skin would not fit him anymore, so it began to molt . As he molted, his skin slowly pulled off of its body. "Get off!" The caterpillar said.
The caterpiller continued to eat and eat, and grew bigger and bigger. It continued to molt a few more times.
Soon, the caterpillar became very tired and began searching for a place to rest. He attached his tail to the underside of a stick and stretched out. The head of the body began curling up, forming the letter J.
Before he knew it, the caterpillar was tired of hanging around. He began slowly transforming into a chrysalis . His body became green and yellow and its last molt started to form near his tail.
"Phew...that was hard work!" The caterpillar said. He was finally a chrysalis and was ready to begin his transformation into a butterfly. "Here we go!" said the caterpillar all bundled up in his chrysalis.
From the outside, the chrysalis looked still . Other creatures would stop by to check on him, but he looked to be sleeping. Actually, the chrysalis was making drastic changes. The worm like body of a caterpillar was dissolving as wings, organs and other body parts are being formed.
After a week or so, the chrysalis soon began to change color. The outside was clear, and parts of the butterfly were now able to be seen.
At this point, the butterfly was ready to stretch his wings. STRETCH! The chrysalis broke open and the butterfly crawled out with its wings folded up against its body.
A short time later, the butterfly began to pump its wings, preparing to fly away. "Here I go!" said the butterfly.
"What is that?" the butterfly said as he spotted a beautiful flower below. As the adult butterfly landed on the flower, he began to suck the delicious nectar through his proboscis . While he was doing this, some of the pollen from the plant rubbed off onto his wings. Once the butterfly was ready to fly away, the pollen started to gently fall off of the wings landing on other plants.
Let's review
The stages of the butterfly life cycle are...
Move your mouse over the pictures as you say them with me.
