Saturday, May 9, 2009

Different Caterpillar Sizes

This May I raised another brood of caterpillars. I had eighty. I included pictures of them in all different stages. 

IMG_0074

This little caterpillar just hatched. It is about the size of an ant. The yellowish objects on my hand are Monarch eggs.

little caterpillar

This little caterpillar is probably a few days old. They grow so fast! Each time a caterpillar sheds it’s skin it gets bigger. A caterpillar shedding it’s skin is called molting. The time in between each molt is called an instar. In their first few instars they almost double in size every day.

IMG_0015

This caterpillar is in its second instar. It has shed its skin once.

This caterpillar is preparing to molt (shed skin). Before molting the caterpillar attaches itself to a leaf and stays very still for hours. Right now it is in it’s 4th instar but after it sheds it’s skin it will be in the 5th instar. 
IMG_0029

IMG_0016 Look how big this one is. It is one inch long.

IMG_0032

This caterpillar is in it’s 5th instar. It is now starting to wander in search for a place to shed it’s skin one last time. When it sheds it’s skin for the last time it will be a chrysalis!

2 comments:

  1. Elizabeth, i love your blog, I liked detective joshua, but my favorite was the butterfly garden. I saw your had no comments so I wanted to send you one. Just wanted to say Hi. your friend from Ballet...Rebecca.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hi elizabeth I went to your blog again and I was wondering if you were going to change it. And if you do let me know. Rebecca.

    ReplyDelete