happy

what a happy little fella i stumbled upon in the garden tonight.

taking flight

two more beautiful girls take flight this morning.

first flight

enjoying a hawaiian punch soaked cotton ball before she takes her first flight.

14kt gold and jade

the monarch chrysalis is so beautiful. chrysalis is a greek word meaning golden crown.

here are a few reasons for the gold dots...

camouflage - they reflect colors of the surroundings and break up the shape of the chrysalis

warning  - somehow the coloration would fend off predators

protection - they filter particular wavelengths of light which might be harmful to the monarchs

nothing - no function, but just the result of something else in the cuticle

the more i read, it seems to be, that they are points of entry for air entering the chrysalis.

whatever the reason for them... they look like 14kt gold and jade to me... just a beautiful jewel.

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.

hanging around

once they are ready to become a chrysalis, they crawl up to a safe place and hang motionless in 'j position' for about a day. they climb to the top of the castle and attach themselves with hooks that on are their back legs to a silk pad.

out in the wild it could be up to 40 feet away from the milkweed they were feeding on.

:(

one of my caterpillars died.

of the 10 i was raising - three of them are already chrysalis - three have climbed up the castle and will probably go in 'j position' by tomorrow - and three are in their 5th instar and will probably climb up by tomorrow too.

then there was the little guy... he wasn't growing. he was still in his 3rd instar although they were all born a day or so apart.

i kept watching him - wondering why he wasn't growing... i was rooting for him...

i guess they aren't all going to make it - as sad as that is. i am grateful for the other nine healthy ones.

i have had a few other deaths. i have a spot in the garden, marked by a little crystal, where i bury them. i put some fresh verbena there for him... for the butterfly he would have been.