The Beautiful Transition

My dearest friend, White Diary asked me to take care of her Kadipatta plant (Curry leaves) and other plants till the time she finds larger space to keep them. I was more than happy to take them and keep them on my window grill.

Hungry Caterpillars

After a month, suddenly I noticed there were caterpillars on the plant. Oh My God was my reaction! The Common Mormon. There were three. I missed the first two stages before it became a caterpillar. I kept the plant indoors to not let the birds eat it and kept a close eye on them.


There was too much excitement that WD and me would discuss its process. It was indeed thrilling. Never seen this before. Out of the three caterpillars, one died :( that is when I took the plant and kept it right in front of my eyes! Didn't want to lose the other two.

This is the stage of Pupation. Before it gets into the stage of pupating, the caterpillar stops eating completely. They don't move either. This is when I thought they were probably dead. But they weren't. I touched it a little, it wriggled. I researched a little about their cycle and that was a relief and a beauty. The pupa hung itself, suspended on two silk strings...reminded me of Spider-man! This is also called the Chrysalis. Butterflies do not form cocoons, moths do.

After a week it started turning black, which meant the end of the pupal stage and a butterfly would emerge. Yay! 

Common Mormon Butterfly Emerges :)

                             And here emerges the Beautiful Butterfly and stretches its wings.                                    

Pretty Things!

And there were two. Flying around in the room. I played a lot with them. Held it, let it sit on me, and then I had to let them go out in the open... to fly to freedom, to live and continue the cycle of life!

Research source: http://www.butterflyschool.org/new/meta.html, http://animaldiversity.ummz.umich.edu/accounts/Papilio_polytes/,  blogs, images.