Carolyn Kunin: "Years ago I found a Monarch caterpillar on some milkweed and brought him home. I put him on a potted parsley plant and draped him with gauze to protect him from birds and he proceeded like Topsy to grow and grow...I was fortunatley at home when he began to construct his cocoon and I watched the process with fascination. When he had completely entered the pupal stage...I accidentally jostled the pot. My little pupa shuddered violently and lay still...I mourned him and put him in a tiny box that jewelers give you and left him where I could admire him from time to time. One day I came home to find a marvelous black and yellow (and blue too?) striped butterfly plastered against a window - how did that get into the house? I looked at the little box, which thank fortune I had left open that day, and the shattered case told the tale. It was the anniversary of the day my little sweetheart should have emerged the year before. What do you make of that? I will swear on anything you like that this is not fabricated or embroidered in the slightest. "

Kurt Johnson:..."The emergent butterfly was obviously a swallowtail, which is yellow with black stripes or black with yellow stripes, depending on the species, AND esp. in the females (and a bit in the males) obvious blue spangled across the inner margins of the hindwings. The Black Swallowtails are well known for parsley being their larval foodplants so that makes it likely that the butterfly was a Black Swallowtail....As to the long time in the crysalis, butterflies have been around since late Dinosaur times; so they have had a lot of time to adjust to "weathering conditions"..... Some can sit in that crysalis up to seven years! So, that's a fascinating story-- and the above probably helps out in understanding it. Lucky you had the lid off that box.... cool!"
Victoria N. Alexander "Your story reminds me of Nabokov's "The Christmas Story," in which a butterfly emergence is delayed, then activated by change in temperature. Butterfly developed is controlled by genes that get switch on or not depending on conditions, such as temperature and humidity [ ].current theories about lateral gene transfer...The genes of one butterfly species may be mixed with the genes of another species by hybridization or transfer via viruses...I worked on Nabokov's mimicry theory, arguing that resemblances between butterflies are probably not created by natural selection. Recently it's been proven that at least some mimics are in fact hybrids"

Jansy Mello: Two enchanting responses to Carolyn Kunin's fantastic experience with a caterpillar, and its metamorphosis. Now, instead of a Cinderella-story, we get to "Snow-White" who was laid in a crystal coffin and jostled into life by a kiss. What I find striking in both stories (Carolyn's and Nabokov's) is to learn that butterflies are sensitive to cyclical time (anniversaries and yearly festivities like Xmas) and, perhaps (!), to an emotional change in the environment.