It has begun! That is to say metamorphosis has begun. Two nights ago when I saw that s/he had attached to the bark in the first stage of becoming a chrysalis, I made a new home for Jamie, my adopted monarch caterpillar out of a shoe box and some left-over tulle. Then I setup my camera and light so I could capture a timelapse of this process (and will post that in the future). I pretty much figured I would miss the main event, as it was late at night and I had to work the next morning. And I was right... by the time I got home from work, Jamie had become a full chrysalis. Here was the setup (photo taken August 1)
And here are some stills from the process Jamie went through (all videos to come later):
By the evening of August 2, my second adopted caterpillar began the process of becoming a chrysalis as well, so I set him up for a timelapse:
And I adopted another after finding that two of the caterpillars outside had begun their walk-about and, I hope, found new locations to form their chrysalises.
By Saturday morning (August 3), I found that my milkweed plants were beginning to suffer from the little yellow aphids that tend to suck the life out of the plant if you don't get them under control. So, I moved all the rest of the caterpillars to my jars inside so I could power-spray the milkweed and attempt to control the infestation.
And now, by this time (9:30 pm on Sunday August 4), four of the five caterpillars have transformed into chrysalis form. The fifth is hanging now and will likely transform sometime tonight. Here's the scene in the camera right now (the dates/times are when the caterpillars finished transforming to chrysalis):
I am timelapsing the changes the chrysalis make now (this will likely take sometime between a week and two weeks).
No comments:
Post a Comment