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.

hungry

thirty one hungry mouths to feed. never had this many.

they are 2nd instars - less than a 1/4" long now. they will grow 3000 times their size before becoming a chrysalis.

hello world...

first born in this batch.

i have 34 eggs right now.

it's going to be crazy once they all start hatching !

transformed

the transformation from caterpillar to chrysalis is amazing.

the first change is the tentacles will start to shrivel up. the caterpillar is hanging in j position, pumping their body. their skin will start to shrivel up too. there is a green tinge to their body.

and then the skin splits.

it starts at the back of the head and moves up the caterpillars back. the caterpillar is twisting and turning, trying to release itself from it's old skin. it becomes more and more shriveled up as it wriggles free. it even sheds all its facial features.

the 4th picture down is the most fascinating to me. since it was attached to the silk pad with its back legs - and it won't have them soon - a little stick, called a cremaster - pokes out from inside it's body. the cremaster searches for the silk pad and attaches itself to the pad. after it has done this, it can then fully release all of it's old body parts. this is so important because if it does not attach to the pad properly, it would fall to the ground and die, since at this point, it is very delicate - it's a suspended bag of fluid. i had never seen this happen before - but i was looking for it this time... and sure enough - there it was. the cremaster.

he will then twist and turn until all of the old skin drops off, readjusting to it's new body form.

and then it starts... the end of life as a caterpillar, and the beginning of the third stage of life - the chrysalis.

this all happens in a few minutes.

spiracles

the little holes on the side of a caterpillar, and butterflies, are called spiracles. they breathe through these holes. the spiracles are connected to a network of airtubes that carry oxygen through their bodies.

click on any picture to enlarge it 

good morning

beautiful day in sunny southern california.

rise and shine and eat some milkweed.

moving out

i got all the babies moved out of the 'nursery' and outside into their 'castle'.

they all seem to be adjusting well... although it is a little harder to keep track of them now. the smaller ones like to hide out under and in between leaves.

i got a picture of this guy right after he molted. you can see his old skin behind him.

day four

today is day four for these little guys.

they are now in their 2nd instar. they are still so tiny. about 1/4" long. their tentacles have grown... and their bright yellow, black and white stripes are visible.

i am caring for 10 babies right now - and they are definitely becoming way more active and curious.

i will keep them inside for a few more days before i transfer them outside to live in their 'caterpillar castle'.

they will be caterpillars for about 14 days.

creeper

well... look who i found creeping around my backyard this morning  :)

as a caterpillar grows, it molts it's skin 5 times before it becomes a chrysalis. each stage of growth is called an 'instar' -  1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th instar.

this guy seems to already be in his 5th instar - he must be pretty stealth to go unnoticed for so long.

day two

 ... eating and pooping. i can already see the stripes.

the two horns on the top of his head, and near his end, are the beginning growth of the tentacles.

just born

the eggs are ready to hatch. when she first lays them, they are pale yellow. in about 4 days, they get a small black dot on the top of them - this is the caterpillars head. the little caterpillar will eat a hole through its egg shell and crawl out.

when they are born, they are less than 1/8" long. their first meal will be their egg shell.

you can see the how small they are when born in this picture

full house

it got very quiet here. i thought they had all moved on and the season was over.

i ended up raising and releasing 15 beautiful monarch butterflies.

10 girls.
3 boys.
2 unknown (before i knew how to tell them apart).







2 days ago i found 3 caterpillars out in the garden on some milkweed.

the next day i found 4 more.

and this morning i found 3 more.

i have a full house now again.

watching them this morning chomp away at the milkweed leaves.

caterpillars

learning more about these fascinating creatures...

they have three body parts.
they have a head, and a body with a thorax and an abdomen.

each thoracic segment has a pair of jointed, or true legs. the abdominal segments have false legs, or prolegs. there are five pairs of prolegs which have tiny hooks on them that hold them onto a leaf. they look like little suction cups.

hi there

i loved this little guy.

caterpillars have six pairs of eyes (called ocelli) but even with all those eyes, their vision is really poor. their tentacles help to guide them.

i was concerned about him because i saw that one of his tentacles was crooked and bent down.

i watched him grow to full size, and then become a chrysalis.

i was happy to release this little one as a butterfly - happy to see him fly away.

growing

they are growing quickly.

they will be caterpillars - their second stage of life - for about 14 days.

each caterpillar will eat about 20 milkweed leaves during this time.

babies

i have baby caterpillars hatching all over the place. these darling little things are less than a 1/8" long. they immediately start eating the milkweed leaves.

i am scrambling to make sure i have enough milkweed to feed them. i roam the neighborhood looking for milkweed. i found 2 neighbors who have pretty good size plants in their yard. i run back up to the nursery to get 2 more plants.

i'm ready.

this is their second stage of life... the caterpillar, or larvae.