👻  UNTOLD STORIES  🤣

by Araceli, Jiselle and Maddie

Have you guys ever wondered about things that have happened in Lake Bluff? Like creepy, funny, or interesting things? Well in our Beagle Times series we will be interviewing teachers and students to ask them if they have any interesting stories. Our first interview was with Mr. Dittl! 

Mr.Dittl told us about his butterflies that his students hatched this year and we're going to tell you about what we learned.

One thing that we learned is that butterflies were in their chrysalis for 11-16 days! They put the butterflies in a butterfly screen cage, which a lot of people put their butterflies in so that wasn't new to us. 

We also learned that if you want to clean their screen net you have to take out the butterflies. So you have to carefully put your finger on their legs and then they will put their front legs up and then their back legs. Mr. Dittl said that it is kind of hard. I thought that was cool because I didn't know that you had to push against their legs a little bit so they would get on your finger. Next time I go to a butterfly cage place at the museum I'm going to try and do that. 

Caterpillars can be as tiny as a seed; they can be an inch long! That's VERY tiny and I was shocked. When a caterpillar runs out of energy they start to die. What happens is they start to dehydrate and they get dry and very hungry so their chrysalis  splits apart and it splits very fast so it's hard to catch but when it splits open the butterfly falls out. 

One story that Mr. Dittl told us it that when he got them he went to go pick some milkweed by the tennis court and he found some and 3 of the caterpillars died and he didn't know why until he found a spider web and there was a spider going all over the place trying to find some caterpillars to eat. So the next time you guys go get some milkweed from the outdoors make sure you check the milkweed and wash it off very well so your caterpillars won't die. 

That is all about Mr. Dittls story about his butterflies/caterpillars. Hope you enjoyed it!

This will become a series and we will be doing these series hopefully until the end of the school year. This will take us hard work so we will do our best! We really appreciate the time you guys put into reading this.