Those are the names affectionately bestowed upon two colorful caterpillars the kids found nibbling on our garden carrots.  We looked them up on the Texas A&M online insect field guide and identified them as ‘parsley caterpillars’.

We gently relocated them, along with plenty of carrot leaves,  to our bug tent so we could observe them for a while.  This is called ‘homeschool science’.  🙂

We got this cool pop-up butterfly tent a few years ago, along with larvae and everything to raise some Painted Lady butterflies, but we’ve continued to use it over and over to observe different critters we find.  It’s easy to hose down and collapses easily for storage.

As soon as they were settled in the tent, they began to munch again! They were entertaining little guys. 

Out came our Prismacolor pencils for ‘homeschool art’.

There is so much education to be had in everyday life! 

S. drew the whole tent with both caterpillars inside…

I drew one caterpillar for J. and then he drew many more crawling all over his paper.

And we caught these guys just in time.  We woke up two days later to find them in chrysalises.  You can see one of them up toward the top of this photo.

And the other one came to rest right on the zipper opening at the top, so I couldn’t get a very good shot of him.

Even at my age, this is still amazing to watch! We wrote it down on our calendar so we can keep track of how many days it takes for them to become butterflies.

And now we are anxiously awaiting their emergence because they will come out looking like this… 

Can’t wait to draw these two Black Swallowtail butterflies!

Have a creative weekend!