Cute Little Chrysalis

I was out in the backyard yesterday afternoon doing some planting and transplanting. Upon moving a perennial daisy from its old home to its new one, I noticed a perfect chrysalis sitting on the ground right where I had just pulled the plant from. Three thoughts immediately crossed my mind:

1. Oh, no! I killed a butterfly!
2. I wonder if it's okay and if I can save it.
3. That would be so cool to keep it and have it hatch!

I immediately went inside and did some research online. I couldn't figure out the exact breed of butterfly based on the looks of the chrysalis but found all the info I needed to move forward in my hopes to save the butterfly. Once finished, I went out and picked up the chrysalis. When I touched it, the tail end moved. That's the only way to confirm life - good sign! I then set up a nice, roomy habitat for our new pet in a huge glass jar with dirt/mud and a daisy stem and leaves. It was quite pretty - textured glass and all - if I do say so myself. I came down to my craft room and got my scrapbooking glue dots and using just one, secured the chrysalis to an aspen tree twig that I then carefully leaned against the inside wall of the jar. I pulled a knee-high nylon stocking over the jar's mouth and voila!...we had our own butterfly in progress.

I did the "touch check" on it again this morning and thank goodness, it was still alive. I really hadn't killed it. From what I'd read online, its dark color is indicative of the butterfly emerging soon, so I peeked in on our visitor off and on today, hoping to see our friend coming out of its protective home.

This evening, I couldn't help but think that there must be some way to figure out what breed of butterfly we would be seeing in the next day or two. So I went back to the computer and instead of "dark chrysalis" or "dark red chrysalis" as I did yesterday, I decided that my thinking it was red was incorrect and typed in "dark brown chrysalis". Once again, I found images of a darkening monarch chrysalis but the shape/form wasn't right. I kept pulling up different pages and then I found it. We were the proud foster parents of...

Some sort of Hawk Moth. Gross! I immediately took the contents of the jar and put them in the trash. Garbage day tomorrow...perfect. I am still getting the heebie jeebies just thinking about it. And I get them even worse when I try to find a good (aka totally disgusting) picture of one to post here. Not gonna do it. I could post the picture that I took of the chrysalis when I thought it was a butterfly. But I've already deleted it because just seeing it grosses me out.

Honestly, I can handle cute little moths like skippers (used to chase and catch them on the neighbor's lawn) but anything bigger or uglier than that? Count me out. I can't believe I was going to nurture a moth. Blech!