Harvesting Caterpillars

Madeline continues her foray into entomology. She's been collecting caterpillars that she finds in the house. Eeww, I know. So I did some research to see what a young caterpillar needs to grow into a butterfly. I found out that they are voracious, but picky eaters and each species of caterpillar only eats a specific species of leaf. Hmm. How to decide. So Mads just put some random leaves in the first time. The first one died. Catty # 2 was found and madeline decided to try some bougainvillea leaves. She was actually really observant and noted that the leaves had little holes in it, which she hypothesized was eaten by this particular caterpillar. This one died too, but not before it went from a whitish color to pink....bougainvillea infiltration I suppose.

But then I got grossed out. We went to the science center and saw an exhibit on Crime Scene Insects....bugs that help solve crimes. Cool, yes, but only until I realized that these caterpillars were really only larvae of some sort. Gross!