September 17th, 2019

The Third Chrysalis

Yes Yes Yes!!! Three!

But the third and last, our last caterpillar, took a long and winding road. 

Tonight, I am giving specific information about the behavior of our last caterpillar, showing some little videos and pictures in the hope that someone can tell me what the behavior means. 
I looked at our last caterpillar at 10:30 yesterday morning and saw interesting and different behavior.  It went up and down the stalks, swinging its head back and forth and reaching out.    I don’t know whether this is the ‘searching for food’ behavior or the ‘pre-searching for a place to pupate.’ This behavior continued in a dangerous fashion, with the caterpillar barely hanging on to the tip of a leaf with its tail!  I was afraid it would fall off. 

Indeed, it was swinging so hard ​that it did fall off at 10:54!

He then started a trek across the mulch to the neighboring hydrangea crawled through its base stalks, and crawled out to the top of one of the blooms close to the ground at 11:01, where he rested for 15 minutes (picture at top).
​He crawled to the base of the plant and stayed under a leaf about two hours. Then he explored the plant, going up and down various stalks several times, and finally settled under a leaf at 2:37 p.m.  He has stayed there, very still, and was there at 9:00 last night  Was he looking for a place to pupate?  Was he looking for food and went too long without food?

​NOPE!
This morning, Confucius say, I'm a J. And by this afternoon he was our third Chrysalis. 

Meanwhile, the other two have been developing. Compared to the first day, they have developed a black arced line across the front. At the bottom, there are some little dots, beginning to turn gold. They have not grown.