The Eventual Metamorphosis of Smut

A few weeks ago, we purchased a butterfly treehouse. It's pretty much just a pop-up empty container, sold to house butterflies. There is an order form on the inside, which for a mere $6, you get 5 live caterpillars.

We received the caterpillars in the mail pretty quickly. The box contained a small plastic cup filled about 1/2 inch with a super thick peanut butter looking substance and 5 TINY larvae. Seriously, they were teeny tiny. A week later the larvae were ginormous caterpillars. It was ridiculous how large they were. They started out the size of maggots and 7~ish days later, they were the size of the the top two knuckles of my pinkie finger. Crazy huge comparatively speaking! Within a day, they hardened into their cocoons (it's like their bodies just folded over and hardened) and I had 5 hanging soon to be butterflies in the cup. Then, another 7~ish days, they all hatch within a day of each other and we are the owners of 5 painted ladies butterflies.

Amazing.

The butterflies eat sugar water during the time we'll keep them in captivity. As I opened the little door this evening, one escaped. I yelped with surprise as I didn't want it to get away in the house and the girls gave one hell of an amazing reaction.

TERROR.

They screamed and took off running. The screams continued down the hallway, honest to goodness screams, as I hear their bedroom door slam shut. After catching the butterfly and returning it to it's house, a mere 10 seconds later, I open the door to their room to see two little girls scared to death. They were crying at this point, sitting with one another on the floor, huddled together. So scared.