The Emergence of Ernie!

We came home yesterday afternoon after running some errands to find something marvelous in our kitchen. Ernie the caterpillar, who became Ernie the naked pupa, was now Ernie the 5-spotted Hawkmoth! He was on the side of his tupperware enclosure resting and drying his wings. He is GORGEOUS! I took a couple of quick pictures, then decided to leave him be, they tend to be very delicate right after emergence and I didn't want to stress him. When we got up this morning, his wings were dry and he was moving about some. I took a couple of photos then took him upstairs to the Monkey Man's room. We shut the door (so if he escaped he be more easily recaptured) and I got Ernie out of the enclosure. He was still very mellow and crawled around on my hand. Both kids were mesmerized by him! I took some photos and allowed the Monkey Man to hold him for a minute. This moth has very drab wings, but his body is amazing, black and gray and white with bright orange spots (5 on each side of course). I had hoped to be able to keep him to show my science co-op on Wed. But my expert from Canada, Mr. Oehlke says that he will need to nectar and trying to do that artificially is very hard. So we can keep Ernie for the rest of today, but we must release him tomorrow night at the latest, which is pretty ironic being that tomorrow night it the full moon. Crazy how living things are so in tune with the world around them. His pupation and emergence were perfectly coincided with the full moon. Wow!

This has been a wonderful experience for the entire family. Watching something go from a big fat, bright-green caterpillar, then change into this weird, brown alien-looking thing, then into a gorgeous 2-1/2 inch moth was so amazing! I think what impressed me the most was the actual chrysalid. I examined it when I removed it from the enclosure. It was so light and delicate! It was hard, yet very, very thin and it's almost impossible for me to explain what it felt like, maybe like Celophane but not as flexible. How completely incredible that such a HUGE transformation happens inside something so completely fragile! Anyway, here are some photos of Ernie the 5-spotted Hawkmoth! And any of you out there that doubted my reasons for keeping him can now look at the amazing creature he turned into. Pest or not, he is something to behold!