Pterophyllia camellifolia

We have two pets. No, they're not dogs or cats or fish. They're bugs. What other kind of pet would you have when you have a 5 year old future bug scientist? All day, every day, Noah is outside or wanting to be outside with God's tiny creatures. I have to admit that I love it. I love watching him busy as a bee working on his bug jars, feeding their inhabitants leaves and drowning ants in water. Yes, he's very loving.

Back to our pets. Meet Leafy, our pet Katydid. Joel and I saw while watching a movie crawling up our French doors. We immediately snatched him up to save for a little boy we knew would love him.

We've had Leafy for a couple weeks now. Noah feeds him fresh leaves and we give him an occasional drink of water. I keep calling him "him," but he might be she because I think there's an egg somewhere in her plastic house.

A few days ago we thought we lost her. We woke up and found she'd escaped her cozy little home (I can't imagine why she'd want to leave!). I knew she was in the house somewhere but who knew where. I told Noah we'd look for her. That night we were in the kids' room getting them ready for bed when Noah stopped dead in his tracks, looked down at the floor with eyes wide and stood there with a slightly horrified look on his face. I thought he saw a spider! But nope, it was Leafy, just chillin' on the floor. Noah was so happy to have found her, especially that he was the finder. She's safe and sound now (and probably a little miserable) in her house of plastic.

Now meet Woody. I just named him that because he looks like wood. Woody is a chrysalis. We caught him when he was a big, fat caterpillar and watched him prepare for chrysalis making. I saw him attach the silky thread from his body to the stick whereby he could hang lazily until hatching time. Then we left home for a couple days, and when we came back we found this strange, woodlike thing dangling from the stick.

That was about a month ago, and nothing's happened. Unfortunately, Woody may have gone to caterpillar heaven, but I'm not giving up hope. Maybe he's taking an extra long time because he's going to be the most beautiful butterfly in the world. I'm trying to stay positive.

I hope you like our pets. They don't do much, which means they aren't noisy, messy or stinky. Three must-have criteria for pets.