Red, Red Wings
This article was written by me for a magazine ONE OF the most miraculous sights in nature is the lifecycle of the butterfly — it goes through a complete metamorphosis as it passes through four distinct stages: egg, caterpillar, pupa and adult butterfly. Let me share my own experience with rearing butterflies on my window sill. About four years ago, someone gifted me a pupa of the Red Pierrot butterfly. A pupa is that stage in the lifecycle of a butterfly after which the adult emerges. As I watched the pupa, one day at a time, the wait was agonising. Eventually, on day nine, its colour changed from white to black and I knew the birth was near. I checked on it several times that night, with no luck! By morning, the pupa was transparent and the colours of its wings were visible. At noon, the pupal case burst open and out crawled the beauty, struggling to find its feet. It had two black forewings and two red hind wings on the upper side, while the underside was white with black dots; a b