The Bugs in the Backyard: A Momentous Morning

Ladies and Gentlemen, I have an announcement to make. The Caterpillar is no longer a caterpillar.

It is a chrysalis:

These are the best shots I could get considering the awkward place it chose to pupate, but I think you can see pretty well what it's like now. In this shot you can see the silk anchor thread that is holding it to the top of the cage. Also, if you look closely, you can see the shape of the wing in that upper middle area.

I once promised to tell you what happens inside a chrysalis. Basically, the caterpillar dissolves into goo and the cells (which are sort of like stem cells, that can become any kind of tissue) rearrange themselves to make a butterfly instead of a caterpillar. Yes, that sounds crazy, but that's what happens. Scientists think that some of the cells have a kind of memory of what kind of cell they were, like a leg cell remembers it was a leg cell and becomes a leg cell again. I used to think that the chrysalis was something that the caterpillar built around itself, but it's not. The chrysalis IS the caterpillar. It sheds its skin a last time, and this is what is inside. There is a prolonged period of staying still before that happens, and I don't know how much of this gooifying happens at that point, but it must be some of it, which you will be convinced of it you ever get a chance to watch a monarch caterpillar turn into a chrysalis. It's creepy, but amazing. Unfortunately I didn't get to watch the actual chrysalizing process with this one, and am not entirely sure when it happened, because it was so hard to see it without disturbing it. I think it happened between the time I came downstairs this morning and when I left for church. About a twenty minute window. But I could be completely wrong.

I can't get good pictures, as I said, but I got some that show certain features. Like in this one you can see the thread that holds it up. I would have loved to have seen exactly HOW the caterpillar got a thread wrapped around itself...

I think those dark dots/bumps correspond with where the blue dots were on the caterpillar.

Since we are a long way from winter, this butterfly will be emerging in 9-11 days. If it was late in the fall, it would overwinter as a chrysalis and emerge in the spring. So, stay tuned in 9-11 days!

Backyard Bug of the Day could be a bit of an anticlimax after such bug excitement in the dining room, but I found a new bug today that I have not seen before, so that was pretty exciting, too.

Backyard Bug of the Day:

I actually think this might be an almost mature version of a bug I have seen in the past, but at any rate, I have never seen it look like this, so I am still calling it something new. It's not in my bug book, naturally.

Side view.

Check out the proboscis tucked up against the body. Hemiptera!

Backyard Bud of the Day is also new to me:

No idea what it is, because I have never seen it in my yard before. Tiny, yellow flowers.

Back to the subject of chryslalides, I posted a picture of this cocoon a while back:

Whatever was in it emerged from its chrysalis and crawled out of the cocoon - not necessarily in that order.

The baby bugs have all molted and are the same size again:

A lot of them are still hanging around the eggs...

But some have moved onto other leaves on the tree.

I found some more eggs elsewhere:

Some are obviously open, and some are obviously not, but it's hard to tell if what is in them is developing, or if something has gone wrong.

I think this may be some kind of egg mass, too - or rather, that there are eggs inside this:

And where do eggs come from?

No, I mean besides chickens. Bugs following the prime directive of all living things - pass on your DNA.

If I had to guess, I would say that that appendage is the female's ovipositor, and that she is the bug in the front.

Random Bugs:

Beetle.

Cranefly. I so rarely get pictures of bugs while they are on the wing!

I don't know what's going on with this hopper, but it doesn't look good.

If you look closely you can see that this ant has a drop of honeydew in its jaws.

See?

Please indulge my interest in feathers for a moment:

And now some flowers:

Astilbe.

Red clover. Which is purple.

Queen Anne's lace. I took this picture just to show that there are a whole lot of bugs on this plant, but I couldn't go look at them because I am allergic to it!