My daughter was riding her bike one day early last August when this plump caterpillar, perhaps 3 inches long, brought her to a screeching halt in our driveway. We all ran over to examine it, but we couldn’t help noticing the number of watchful, hungry birds around as well. We moved it to the grass, but it was still too big to maintain a low profile, and it seemed to be in a big hurry.

I dashed inside and hurriedly scanned our caterpillar book, delighted to discover it was a polyphemus moth caterpillar. The book noted that this was a great caterpillar to bring inside to observe the metamorphosis, so we got the aquarium and put it inside with some walnut and hickory leaves, which the book gave as the caterpillar’s preferred food.

By the next morning, it was spinning its cocoon in the corner of the aquarium. “Great,” I thought. “In two weeks, we’ll have a beautiful moth to let go.”

We had a polyphemus moth stay with us for a few hours once before, so naturally we thought of ourselves as experts.

But… did I mention that I “hurriedly scanned” the caterpillar book? Therein lies the joke. I failed to notice with sufficient attention that the late-summer caterpillar overwinters in its cocoon.

So since August, Polyphemus has been our house guest. There on the bookcase, he’s slept through Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, both daughters’ birthdays, Easter, and the state’s shutdown due to COVID-19. Unbeknownst to him (such a long-term visitor deserves a better pronoun than “it”), he has shared in a large portion of family life, all without being the least bit demanding or objectionable.

And one of these days, we hope, he will emerge to show off his glorious beauty for an incredibly brief winged life.

This is actually a picture from back in June that I didn’t get around to posting then. I saw it as I pulled into a grocery store parking lot one morning, sunning itself on the pavement in the exact center of the entry ramp. I stopped the car and got out. With encouragement from a man in a pickup truck who stopped to see what I was looking at, I let it walk onto my finger.

We kept it in an aquarium for a day as it slept. Polyphemus moths live only a few days and don’t eat — don’t even have mouths! But when evening came it was ready to FLY. Hopefully it lived the rest of its short life to the fullest.

When I took a picture of this trail in the spring, I never would have guessed that it would bless me with a wonder in the fall:  my first ever glimpse of a chrysalis in the wild.

I was so excited I came back later with my daughter, and we discovered another… sadly, it had been robbed. Monarchs are poisonous to birds, so the culprit must have regretted it.

But our spirits lifted at the sight of another. Ultimately we saw eight healthy ones!

Not a single one was on a milkweed plant. Several chose goldenrod; #8 was on a stalk fallen nearly flat across the trail, and must have been that way almost the whole time. A few chose other plants that I didn’t recognize. One — #7 — chose a stalk of grass!

Several of them looked ready to hatch, so after lunch I went back. #5 had hatched!

I had been a little worried about #7. Rain was predicted, and that stalk of grass looked so fragile… But the chrysalis was looking ready to pop, so I set up my tripod to try and video its emergence. Amazingly, it came out just as a very gentle shower began.

I did video its emergence, and it’s amazing to watch! If I figure out how to make the file smaller I’ll post it. But these pictures tell the story of transformation.

It was a gift. I’ve looked before for chrysalises, but this is the first time I’ve ever seen any in the great outdoors, and it was a jackpot sighting. I woke this morning heavy-hearted over various things going on in our often messed up and confusing world, but this was a glimpse of something working marvelously right.

Only two chrysalises left. Today’s hatchling was the first to be greeted by a cool, rainy day. I hope he will make out all right!

Yesterday’s fluttered immediately up into a tall tree and spent the day there.

So far we’ve had 5 males and a female.

Caterpillar #2 took flight yesterday. Adios, friend!

It’s an amazing thing to watch this process of caterpillar to butterfly. First they’re tiny…

They eat, sleep, shed several times, and grow restless for the heights…

…then fasten themselves to a good, secure spot.

Next comes the most amazing part. As a child when we did this, I never saw the chrysalis formation happen. I pictured the process as being similar to the moth that spins a cocoon around itself. But the chrysalis is within the caterpillar, waiting to neatly trim away all the stuff the butterfly will no longer need.

Monarch Metamorphosis from Snaphappy on Vimeo.

It takes perhaps a half an hour before the process is really complete.

The old skin, discarded, lies on the ground beneath the finished chrysalis. Now it’s a matter of waiting for a week or 10 days till a butterfly emerges. We have 4 chrysalises and 4 caterpillars at the moment. Hopefully all 8 will emerge as healthy butterflies ready for their trip to Mexico.

Checking for monarch caterpillars, we discovered an unfamiliar one munching on goldenrod:

I snapped the picture with my phone, then came home and searched my caterpillar guide and the internet to identify it. The moth is quite drab, but the caterpillar is bright and active. Other than that, I haven’t been able to unearth much information about it.