The first two photos are from my dining room, Sunday night. The top one is the Grade 2 chrysalides, reading to eclose sometime soon. You can see a scrunched up butterfly in each. So beautiful!
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| Grade 2 chrysalides, Sunday night |
The second photo is our swallowtail caterpillar, Fen Fen. I decided to bring it inside since it's in its final instar and will be crawling off soon to make its chrysalis. I've never raised a swallowtail before but I read that it doesn't make its chrysalis on the plant it's on and is often hard to find once it does, so I decided to keep it contained so we could all enjoy this next stage. The pictures below are a flashback of the past week so you can see what a remarkable process caterpillar development is for this species - after each molt, the caterpillar looks completely different. The stage between molts is called an instar. I think the pictures are showing Fen Fen in its 3rd, 4th, and 5th instars in the pictures.
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| Fen Fen, the swallowtail, in a bed of fennel, Queen Anne's lace, and parsley |
Jackson asked a question about caterpillar/butterfly brains and it led me to do a bit more research about the metamorphosis and what's going on inside that chrysalis. Here are a few cool links:
In general, I can't say enough wonderful things about the Journey North
website.
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| Just last Tuesday (June 19) - 3rd instar? |
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| Wednesday (June 20) - 4th instar? |
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| Friday (June 22) - 5th instar? |
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