Cocoon

Because I know most of you are just dying to know how our caterpillars are doing...

Well, really, I have no idea if you care, but I'll update you anyway. I didn't realize that when the caterpillars were ready to cocoon themselves, they wouldn't just jump happily onto the nice sticks I provided. All but one of them made several attempts to escape the nice confines of my critter cage. Three of them manage to attach themselves to various places on my sunporch before I could put them somewhere more appropriate.

The first one that escaped attached itself to a candle holder of mine. A day or two after it attached itself (forming fuzzy tie from its bottom), I checked on it as I took the kids outside to play. There were two strands of silk from it back suspending it away from the candle holder, and its green color was fading to a grey. When we came back into the house an hour later, it was cocooned, and a little ball of skin lay on the table beneath it.

I was determined to not miss the transformation of the next caterpillar, so when I noticed another one turning grey and wriggling in a strange way, I locked the kids in the house and only poked my head in once in a while to make sure they hadn't hurt themselves or were destroying something.

Everybody talks about the drama of the butterfly emerging from its cocoon, but somehow, I doubt it can compare to what I watched. Perhaps it is only because I can relate more to this stage of developement at this point in my life.

I have no idea how long the caterpillar wrestled within itself before it molted its last caterpillar skin. (They molt several times as they grow and eat the skin they shed.) I watched it off and on for an hour. Finally, the skin split around the head, and it writhed as it worked the skin down over its body. The skin balled up in front of its tail so that it was stuck between it and the stick it was attached to. It was now pale green and moist, and it looked so vulnerable, like the flesh of a wound that oozes. Although it was naked, it continued to writhe, working to get the old skin away from itself. When the old skin finally dropped away, it slowly calmed down.

Looking closely at the new, raw form, you could see hints of what it was going to be... Future butterfly legs and body and tail. It was amazing. Then the soft outer flesh started hardening. It started to tighten up so that vulnerable creases were pulled up in behind the new tougher flesh. The pale green faded, and soon it had closed itself into a grey and black little fortress, where it could continue its metamorphasis in relative safety.