July 26th, 2006
loss of face
Can you guess what this is?
I found it on a milkweed leaf in the container where I’m keeping the Monarch caterpillar that I wrote about earlier today.
This afternoon, I happened to check on the caterpillar, and saw something very tiny sitting on a leaf inside the container. I got my 15X loupe out and took at look at the “thing” and saw pretty much exactly what you see in the above photo. Pretty neat, isn’t it?
I then took a closer look at the caterpillar, and discovered that it had molted and its old “skin” was curled up nearby. I got out my camera and photographed the above through the loupe. That’s the old caterpillar head capsule — I guess you could think of it as its face. I thought I’d get a few shots of the rest of the molted skin, but by the time I finished photographing the molted head capsule, I discovered that the caterpillar was rapidly consuming the shed skin – no doubt it’s quite nutritious and high in protein. I’m quite amazed at how quickly it ate everything — probably less than a minute. However, I did notice that it left the sharp, black claws from the thoracic legs. You can see them on the leaf next to the caterpillar in this photo below.
I re-measured the caterpillar, having measured it earlier today, and it seems to be a little over 25mm now. It must have exploded out of its outer wrappings like a jack-in-the-box when it molted. All quite fascinating!
[Edit: I've just re-measured the caterpillar on the morning of July 27, and it's at least 30mm now...perhaps even a little longer.]
Tags: Monarch caterpillar, molting