Moth Update

I’m behind on a few things … including the story of our hummingbird clearwing moth. (If you don’t know what I am talking about, catch yourself up here.) Here is what our caterpillar–raised from a myserious egg found on our backyard viburnum bush–looked like 17 days after it hatched (this photo was taken last Wednesday):

Here’s the same caterpillar three days later:

Pupation had begun! This was exciting, and it was very, very hard not to disturb the process by peeking at our cat every twenty seconds. I was good, though; I took this one photo, covered the browning beast back up with the paper towel that it had chosen to pupate beneath, and hid my camera. Then I sat on my hands for as long as possible.

Today, I could wait no more …

So, here is our setup. On the left of the tank you can see the viburnum leaves placed in the tank for the caterpillar’s culinary pleasure. On the right, a paper towel; I put this in the tank so I could add water without making too much mud; I didn’t realize the caterpillar would use it as a shelter to pupate under. The oval-shaped dirt blob on the folded down corner of the paper towel is our pupating moth:

Need a closer view? So did we. So I lifted up the paper towel and tried to pull away the dirt mound containing the pupa. The caterpillar had spun a cocoon of sorts around itself, a mix of reddish-brown silk and dirt that had gotten hard and semi-impenetrable. If we wanted to see the pupa itself, we were going to have to go through the dirt/cocoon mound. The kids told me that I was a nut for proceeding, but notice their heads were practically in the tank as they said so:

Our first glimpse was enticing:

And I can tell you for certain our tiny pupating charge is alive. How do I know? BECAUSE IT WRIGGLED! It wriggled like a … a … forty-something mother of three trying to fit into her thirty-something genes. Serious wriggling. Here’s one last view. I should’ve put a ruler in there for you, but I was holding a wriggling nub of life and wasn’t thinking straight:

I’ve now wrapped our pupa back into its cocoon and laid the paper towel in the dirt again. I will try not to touch the tank again until I see a hummingbird clearwing moth in it …