News From the Critter Front

Well, the praying mantises are rapidly growing. They've probably tripled in size since "birth." They are eating well which had me a little worried. My little vials of fruit flies were looking like they did before just before all the fruit flies died--it kind of looks like algae or some other fungus growing on the sides of the vials. Considering what I went through before and how much these mantises are eating, I was starting to get a little worried. It was time to take action. This morning I cleaned out two of the vials, added a strawberry, and successfully transferred the remaining fruit flies. I hope they will thrive with their strawberry. Ollie has some ideas for capturing fruit flies in our compost bin so I think we will be able to continue to feed these babies. I do look forward to the day that they will be big enough to eat pin-headed cricket nymphs. I can buy those really cheap at a LOCAL pet shop. My goal is to keep these things healthy, alive, and growing at least until the end of June. That's when we have our homeschool exhibition and I'd love to be able to have them on display.

In other news-- a friend of ours bought the kids a butterfly kit. Similar to the mantis kit but these caterpillars come with their own food and the butterflies just drink sugar water. We got the caterpillars less than a week ago and they have already doubled in size--it's amazing! After they form their chrysalids we will put them in their butterfly garden and wait for them to hatch into butterflies. We did this same thing around this time last year and they all decided to hatch the day we were driving to Georgia so I had the butterly garden--a mesh cylinder thing--in the front seat next to me and we watched their progress at every stop. Such homeschooling fun!

And one sad thing to report--Pinkie Pye the caterpillar has passed away.