Gulf Fritillary already emerged

As you know from my August posts, a we were anticipating the emergence of a Gulf Fritillary Butterfly Agraulis vanillae from its chrysalis. It was hard to see if the chrysalis was still intact because the caterpillar had attached itself high up near one of our back gates, close to its passionflower host plant.

We noticed for about a week that the chrysalis no longer moved with the warmth of the sun.

And it had been in chrysalis form for more than three weeks.

Yesterday I decided to inspect closely and realized that the Gulf Fritillary had already emerged.

It would have been great to watch the emergence event.

Oh well, maybe we'll get lucky one day and be able to witness another Gulf Fritillary emerge from its chrysalis.

Here is the chrysalis when it was intact, prior to the butterfly emergence.