Sunday, March 31, 2013

and yet more caterpillars

If you are wondering whether I shall tire of caterpillars and butterflies, the answer is probably no!  While camping with the dorm this weekend, we met a group of lepidopterists from Hong Kong.  I found out that lepidotery is the study of butterflies and caterpillars, and have decided this is going to be my new hobby!!

Just before the weekend, I managed to get a video of a caterpillar transforming into a chrysalis, which I've uploaded below.  From what I've observed, the caterpillar attaches itself to something solid with some sort of sticky/weblike substance, and hangs upside down for roughly 12 hours, before it does this!  I missed the very beginning of this caterpillars change but you can still see the process.  In the background of the shot there is a chrysalis hanging that is fully dried out.  I haven't yet seen one emerge as a butterfly so not sure how long exactly they hang for.  God really is creative!





2 comments:

  1. Fantastic! Every year we try to watch our Monarch caterpillars do this. They make beautiful green chrysalises with little gold dots. This year they wandered off somewhere while we weren't paying attention, so we'll have to wait until they emerge and flutter into the garden.
    I wonder what your butterfly will look like - maybe some blue bits?

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  2. Oh I've seen the monarch chrysalises, but I didn't know what sort of butterflies they were!
    I thought I knew what sort of butterflies we were getting, and yes, I suspected blue spots, but I was wrong! There's a picture of what they are like in my new blog post :)

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