We hold these truths to be self evident…

You know how kids are….”Mom, look what I found!” And then you find that your home is host to all sorts of critters in various stages of life. This time, it was Monarch butterfly eggs. We were hiking past a farmer’s field that was soon to be mowed, and spotted some milkweed plants on the edge of the field, by the road. Milkweed is getting more and more rare around our rapidly suburbanizing neighborhood, so we were surprised to see it. A quick, close up inspection revealed Monarch eggs on the underside of some of the leaves. So, how could we leave them to be mowed down and destroyed? The Monarch’s habitat in our area is rapidly vanishing…these little ones would not survive once their plant was mowed. So, we plucked the plants, brought them  home, and installed them in the butterfly tents we just happened to have in the closet.  Needless to say, the tiny little eggs hatched, and the caterpillars grew and grew. And ate and ate. We went on panicked searches for more milkweed so feed our hungry babies, getting a glimpse into the struggle of the Monarch in our area. Now, we are swarming with caterpillars, because every time we bring new milkweed in to feed our young ones, there are more eggs, more caterpillars that hatch. We expect that sometime this week, our first group will be ready to take flight, and are anxiously awaiting that mystical moment when a beautiful, fragile looking winged creature will emerge from the jade green chrysalis hanging from the top of the caterpillar tent.

Now, I don’t remember learning this when I was a child. Any my kids certainly did not learn this in their 2nd grade butterfly project in school. I always thought that a caterpillar “made” a chrysalis. It turns out that it is actually part of the caterpillar – that when they shed their final layer of skin, this is what is left, and inside it, all sorts of cool things happen with the cells of the critter reorganizing into a new thing altogether…there is a much better explanation of the process here –

http://animals.howstuffworks.com/insects/caterpillar3.htm#

It stuns me to think that, all my life, I thought that a caterpillar “made” a chrysalis, that it was just another kind of cocoon…it seems a simple misconception, but now I’m wondering how many of my basic assumptions about life may prove to be inaccurate. What other “self evident truths” will turn out to be oversimplifications, or out and out falsifications, of actual fact.  Time will tell, I guess. But I intend to try looking at life with a more open mind. I intend to allow for the possibility that I may not know as much about things as I thought I did.