Saturday, September 20, 2014

back to life

i saw the most amazing thing this morning...

i woke up and was cleaning out the castle and getting fresh milkweed for my caterpillars.

i have my milkweed leaf stalks in jars of water to keep them fresh. then i saw that this poor little guy had fallen in the water - and he had drowned... so sad.

i remembered i had just read something about this...

put the caterpillar on a pile of salt.

i did that... and i was amazed when a few minutes later he started moving. then started walking around !

okay ! it worked !!

when a caterpillar falls in water, it's spiracles close over and the caterpillar goes into a state of torpor. the salt draws any water out of the spiracles and trachea.

fascinating.

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