Hermie - the caterpillar

While Joshua was at Texas Motor SpeedWay I told you that we got a new pet... A caterpillar!
Hannah and Caleb were looking out the window and saw a caterpillar on the screen. So I got it and asked Hannah if she would like to take care of it and watch it turn to a butterfly. She was thrilled with the idea. We put him in a plastic "cool whip" container at first. Hannah and I spent a long time on the internet looking up what kind of caterpillar we had and how to take care of it. He is an Eastern tent caterpillar. Hannah named him Hermie. I found that the Hermie needed leaves from the tree of his choice and only those leaves would do and that you could gather fresh leaves and store them in the fridge. Hannah took a basket outside and gathered food for her pet. We learned how to make in a proper home and together gathered sticks from his choice tree to make him a home in a large box. We also learned that this caterpillar was not going to be a butterfly... but a moth. Not so pretty but fun non the less. Here is a pictures off the enternet so that you can see it clearly.



Here are some pictures of our Hermie.



We had a fun scare when our caterpillar got out of the box. Caleb found him on our pantry curtain 2 days later! Glad we found him! Hannah was so excited, very loudly saying, "Caleb found my Hermie."
Then a couple days later I had a real hard time with him getting out. He got out like 5 times in one day, so I put him in the cool whip container again with one leaf and closed the lid (with plenty of air holes). I peeked in at the end of the day and Hermie had made his cocoon under the leaf.

Yesterday I checked on hermie and he was hanging upside down as a moth.


We took him outside and let him go. This is Hannah getting a good look at him.

We fed this life and helped him get to where he is now. Hannah had fun. It was a neat learning tool for teaching about life.

Well this is the type of pet I like. One that you keep for a couple of weeks and then let it go. I think that we'll make keeping a caterpillar a summer tradition. I hope to find eggs next time so that we can see the entire life cycle.