Once they're ready, it's amazing how quickly they change. Really. I woke up this morning and noticed she was attached to the top, and in the j-shape that signals that her skin would soon change from skin to chrysalid. 20 minutes later I looked again and skin was half changed!! I have been watching now for 15 minutes and each minute, more of her skin becomes clear. At one point she was squirming all around, in a circular motion and I thought it must be somewhat of a painful change.
They attach themselves to the top of the container with what I think must be the silk spinner portion of their body, but what I didn't realize is that the part of their "bottom" beyond the part that is attached, actually gets pinched off of the caterpillar's body. Ouch! Right? In the picture above you can see, on the bottom of the container, that part of the caterpillar that was pinched off. When she was writhing around, it fell to the ground.
The first caterpillar to change has now been in her cocoon for 2 days and we can see that she has gold flecks under the chrysalid. This last one, the one that we've been watching every step of the way, is still wiggling around a bit as it's skin changes.
It is truly a miraculous process to watch!
We just did this last month and the girls thought it was way cool! We kept the caterpillar container and were so glad we did because Téa found a monarch caterpillar and we were able to keep it in the little container and it eventually turned into a butterfly as well! So fun!
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