Orange Tip Progress V (Image Heavy).

Checked on the pupa last evening & saw it had changed position, with its head held back, away from off the twig.
Looked again later on & it had started to fidget/wriggle, all within the bounds of its silken "girdle".

Then within an hour, it had completely changed its external appearance, the metamorphosis within had obviously happened!
"Fine tuning" of its shape continued into the late evening & on into the early hours.
I left it, apparently settled into a fixed shape/position.
This morning there had been no change.
Some pics, then:






























While it was all happening last evening, I noticed a small scrap, saved it in a small jar to investigate this morning.
It was about 3mm across.
I checked it under my loupe & this is what "emerged"

The larva's exuvia, the outer skin that was no longer needed in the creature's further developement.
It was split just behind the head, from where it had escaped, leaving the exuvia just rolled back, like a discarded sock!

The Exuvia



The Head




Detail of larva head.




The stacked images clearly show the arrangement of its eyes & the mandibles.


Any C&C more than welcome.

Thanks for looking,

Roger.

Aiee! Who would have thought that a single caterpillar could be the source of such boundless beauty and fascination*

Jon

*But only should it have the good fortune to be collected and nurtured by a macro-master

Really interesting progression, enjoying watching it but it would be nice if you kept it all in one thread so I can just bookmark it and then click daily to see if there has been any action

Once again - thanks for sharing. This is really fascinating stuff.

People so frequently marvel at the idea of metamorphosis inside the chrysalis but the manner in which the caterpillar becomes the chrysalis in the first place is so very rarely mentioned, let alone documented like this. And you have become a maestro of the micro ! Thanks for sharing these.