Ready to Change

The real excitement today was not in the backyard, but in the dining room. We were away last night, and were gone about 30 hours total, but an important change happened while I was away. The biggest of the monarch caterpillars is preparing to become a chrysalis.

The pictures aren't good, but I'll explain what's happening:

 When I got home, the caterpillar was not eating the plants anymore, but was on the top of the enclosure. This is beginning of preparations to change into a butterfly. It will sit like this for at least a day, as I recall. But it does something else, too. It spins silk from an organ near its mouth, and deposits a blob of this silk on the surface where it is going to pupate. Notice near its head (on the right of the picture) it is starting to turn green.

 Later on in the evening it had turned around. This is the next step, because it will insert a barbed post (I can't remember what it's called) from inside its body into the silk. This is what will hold it to the surface while it is pupating. Again, notice near its head, which is now on the left of the picture, it is turning green, and is more green than in the previous picture.

 Later still this had happened. The caterpillar will now hang upside down in this J shape for about a day. You can see the white blob of silk where it is attached to the surface. It is even greener now, and will get progressively greener. If I am lucky enough to catch the moment, I will know it is about to change into a chrysalis because it will relax out of the J shape and just dangle, and its "antennae," which are not actually antennae, will go limp. This will happen at some point tomorrow, but whether it happens when I am home to see it will be up to luck. It happens fast, too, so if I don't happen to notice when it goes limp, I will probably miss it!

I had some lucky timing outside, though:

 I found 3 more caterpillars, and this one, which is about an eighth of an inch long, was in the process of molting when I found it.

 This one was on the same plant, and maybe just a tad bigger; it had probably molted into this instar within the same day. They are both probably second instar.

Here's the other one I found today. About medium size, and maybe not as big as it looks in the picture. It's about the size of caterpillar #2 from before, but not the size it was yesterday when I posted a picture of it, the size it is today. Never mind, this is confusing. Anyway, this one has a bit of growing to do.

Backyard Bug of the Day:

 Moth on purple cone flower. I don't know the species, but this isn't the kind of moth I usually see on flowers. More like tree trunks, or the front porch.

It's a dangerous place, so close to a jagged ambush bug, but I think it is far enough away that the bug won't attack it... unless it moves closer...

Other bugs:

 There are so many of these in the backyard lately (and I am sure you can see that there are two in the picture, different colors).

 Nymph and ants; no doubt the ants are there for honeydew from the nymph.

 Stink bug

 I have seen caterpillars with parasite eggs on them before, but this one seems to have a pile of larvae on its back.

Arachnid Appreciation:
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Itsy bitsy spider