Astounding!

What to say? To think I have lived all these years, never suspecting that this was going on just under my nose!

Just look:

It began last week when we wandered over to the vacant lot and brought home a few branches of hedge mustard for identification. It was an oddly attractive plant, and I left them in a bottle on the kitchen table afterwards. The next day, I noticed a green caterpillar nibbling on the tiny yellow flowers at the tip.

I stashed it in a plastic box for observation and identification. Here it is, as I found it:

A bit fuzzy, about an inch and a half long, green all over with yellow dotted lines along the sides.

I had more time to look the next day; I snapped on an extra lens.


Look closely; this is important. See the 4 little black dots around the eye area. Note the hairiness, and the tiny bluish dots overall.

I fed him (or her) assorted leaves; he ignored all but the hedge mustard. Of this, he relished the miniature yellow flowers the best.

Later that evening, he was no longer eating, but wandering, going to the tips of branches and waving around, as if looking for the next. I brought him new, fresh samples, thinking that maybe the old stuff was too dry. It made no difference. He kept searching.

The next day, he knew where he wanted to go: up. Whatever I gave him, he climbed to the top of, and reached for the sky until he dropped off. Then it was on to the next stem, and up, where he repeated the performance. I put him into a large, lidded container for his own protection; my desk is not the appropriate environment for caterpillars.

Climbing

The next day, he was upside down on the lid. He seemed to be sleeping. Not dead; when I touched him gently with a small paintbrush, he twitched.


So much for background information. Here's what threw me:

I looked in on him at supper time. He was still hanging there, but he looked different somehow. I forgot supper and got out the camera.

From here on, I was clicking away as fast as my camera allowed me.

The caterpillar was gleaming, and his shape seemed to have changed.


Note: no hairs, no small blue dots. No feet. There was something attached to his tail.


As I watched, he began to twitch that tail. The head end stayed fixed, but the tail twisted and squirmed, writhing, working that stuff down and off the end.



Almost off. Look at that molted skin; there are the four black dots at the eye level, the hairs, the pimply bumps where the blue dots were.

But there was more! The whole body had changed while I was watching the skin come off.


Instead of a rounded head, he now has a long snout. The yellow lines are pronounced, and follow jagged ridges along the body. There seem to be eye spots.

And on the side, one would say these are wings in the making:


The snout, close up.


Spinal and side ridges. In this photo, you can see the line of silk webbing holding him to the lid.

All this activity took place in about 15 minutes. I could see the old shapes, the rounded segments, the neck line, dissolve, turn to jelly, reform themselves differently. Big round lumps grew at the head; I thought they would be eyes, but then they reabsorbed themselves. The snout lengthened. The tail shortened and formed a point. A bulge grew over the forehead.

Before my very eyes!

And then he rested.

By the next day, the only thing that had changed was the colouring; black dots and yellow in strategic locations.


As he hangs at the moment.

I don't know what kind of caterpillar this is. I have been scouring BugGuide, and I think he is some variety of moth. But I could be wrong. The next step is to submit a few of these photos to them and wait for an ID.

And find out how long the incubation period will be, and how best to house him.

I'll let you know.