When science experiments go wrong

It's time for an update on our caterpillar, and I'm afraid it's not good. The caterpillar went through his cocoony phase as normal, and after about a week or so, we could see that the cocoon was starting to turn translucent. That was around the time when the kids packed up and went to Camp Gramma and Grampa for a couple of days. We took them out to drop them off and Gramma and Grampa were surprised to see that not only were we bringing them two kids, we were also moving a pet in with them. But it looked like the time for the butterfly to emerge was fast approaching, and we didn't want the kids to miss out on it.

Sure enough, on their last afternoon there, I got a call saying that the butterfly had started to emerge from the cocoon. But three hours later, Gramma and Grampa dropped the kids off at the house... along with the butterfly... who was still trying to get out of his cocoon. And two days later, the damn butterfly was still trying to get out of the cocoon. We did what we could to help him, but nature clearly went awry and there was part of the butterfly stuck to part of the cocoon that we just didn't feel we could do anything about.

Well kids... sometimes things don't go according to plan. Last time I saw the butterfly's jar, which we had removed the lid from and left on the back porch, the butterfly, along with the branch he was still attached to, was gone. I did not ask anyone where they moved him to because I think this is a case of least said, soonest mended. I simply threw the jar into the recycling bin. Maybe we will try again next year... if I can stomach it. In my trolling around the internet to discover how many days to expect the butterfly to stay in the cocoon, I figured out how the cocoon appeared so quickly and how we didn't witness it. The caterpillar does not actually build a cocoon - he sheds his skin, and the cocoon is inside. I learned this by watching a YouTube video and to be honest, it really grossed me out. I'll have to get over that before I invite another one into my house.