In my last posted on Aug 29, I lost “Tucker” after providing him the best habitat for it to spin its cocoon in an open container filled with shredded paper for nesting. It was placed on the open window sill and that night, it disappeared apparently thru a small opening in the screen. Sad news! However, the next day, I found it climbing up the garden shed door. I quickly grasped it and now placed it with the Monarchs in their butterfly house to feed. After all they love the same type of food–milkweed. After several days, I just forgot about it and thought it expired. Happy News…today (Sept 9) while removing the decayed milkweed leaves in the butterfly house, one leaf made the perfect place for “Tucker” to pupate and go into its cocoon! Now, it will winter over and be ready to emerge next spring into a moth. Life does has sweet ending after all!

I did some research from bug guide.net that advised to provide a shelter similar to outdoors, like a screened-in porch…in my case, I selected a screened-in window. Tucker, hopefully, will make its cocoon when it is ready and I’m to keep feeding the caterpillar until then. But lately, Tucker hasn’t eaten any of the fresh leaves so I hope it will start wandering around and notice that in its new environment is a pile of shredded paper for it to pupate. Just have to keep checking on it and wait and see!

When my granddaughters visited, they noticed I had something strange quickly moving about in my Monarch Butterfly House.  They stopped me from destroying it and MJ said it was a Tussock Moth Caterpillar, that also feeds on the milkweed plant. It got transplanted to another container so its activities could be watched!  So, I named it “Tucker”.