Transformation

Today I had very good timing. I walked by my caterpillar enclosure at exactly the right moment to see...
Backyard Bug of the Day:

 

 This caterpillar is just about to turn into a chrysalis. You can tell because instead of being in a J shape, it has gone limp, as have the tendril things that are on its back. It was twitching a little bit, too.

 Then its skin split...

 ... and it began to wriggle, moving the skin upwards...

 When the skin is all bunched up at the top it begins to swing around a lot, trying to get the bunched up skin to drop off.

The first time I watched this process I was kind of horrified. The writhing was so violent. But now I think it's cool.

 When it reaches this stage, it calms down, and slowly contracts...

 Later, this is what it finally looked like. In 10-11 days, it will emerge as a butterfly.

Two other caterpillars have moved up to the top of the enclosure. By evening they were also hanging in a J, so tomorrow they, too, will become chrysalides.

My backyard continues to be Caterpillar Central; I have lost track of how many species I found the week before last, but I keep finding more, and today I even found two species I had never seen before:

This one is new for me and my backyard...

 

 As is this one, although this one looks like a spotted apatalodes, which might have color variants (they are supposed to be yellow, from my experience).

 I spotted this white hickory tussock moth caterpillar at the beginning of my bug walk...

And then later walked by the same spot and saw that it had molted.

 

 Note that its face is white after molting, instead of black. Later it will darken.

It is very easy to walk right by this double-toothed prominent caterpillar and not see it.

It mimics the leaf edge very well.

First one of these I have seen this year. A species of furcula. I am too tired to look up which one, they are hard to tell apart.

Other Bugs:

 Weevil

After I finished my bug walk I happened to be passing through the kitchen and saw this on the window:

 Grasshopper

 

 The view from outside.

Beetle larva

Katydid

Funny thing about these two sawfly larvae sharing a leaf...

Every once in a while the one on the left would whack the other one with its back end. I don't know if it's because it doesn't want to share what's left of the leaf, or if it was reacting to me being close with my camera, and its defensive moves just happened to smack the other larva.

Yellow jacket (I think) on milkweed. For some reason they have been spending a lot of time on milkweed leaves.

When this butterfly zoomed by my head I suddenly realized that I had not seen any butterflies for days:

Either a swallowtail or a red spotted purple. Neither the butterfly nor the internet were cooperative enough for me to really id it.

Arachnid Appreciation:
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 Flower crab spider

The web of a funnel web spider...

It is peeking out of its lair...

Waiting for prey

Jumping spider