Our First Science Project

Mark was out working in the yard on the last day of April and found, what he thought, was an interesting caterpillar.

After a bit of research (google searching & consulting our caterpillar expert, Peeper) we came to the conclusion that it was a Great Leopard Moth caterpillar. Mark decided this would be a great science lesson for Raelyn so we brought him inside and gave him a home.

After a day or so, Mark gave him a name: Frank. (Which is a bit odd since that is our nephew’s name but we went with it.)

Frank munched on leaves and sipped on drops of water for several days. And then he began spinning his cocoon. Either Frank was weak or he was lazy because he built a see-through cocoon.

Several more days went by and he began changing. (I will spare you the photo because it isn’t pretty.)

We returned from vacation and Frank remained unchanged. We were sure he had not survived.

But alas, on May 29th he emerged from his cocoon as a Leopard Moth!

That evening, the kids and I let him go into the “wild”. We were hoping to see him fly off but he just crawled away.