White-lined sphinx moth chrysalis

My very hungry caterpillar finally went underground to do his metamorphosis! It's been kind of a long story, though. Last week Tuesday, at about 3 inches long, he stopped eating, and he seemed very restless, crawling all around in the jar, apparently looking for the best place to do his thing.

He was so active, in fact, that he caught Josie's attention while Courtney and I were in the basement, and she tipped the jar off the windowsill into the kitchen sink. We heard a 'clunk' upstairs, and then a 'thump' of Josie jumping down from somewhere up high. When we went up to investigate, the jar was on its side in the sink. BAD Josie!! But it appeared that no harm was done, and we put the jar into a closed room for safekeeping when we left the kitchen again.

By evening, I'd seen the caterpillar pushing dirt back and forth with his upper body, as his way of digging. But he was never satisfied, and by the time we went to bed, he was still on top of the dirt. Wednesday morning, however, he was gone. Looking very closely, I could see just a bit of his green, but by the time I got outside into better light with the camera, he had completely disappeared.

I removed all the purslane, and in doing so, I also pulled out what had gotten covered with dirt when the jar fell into the sink (I sure didn't want to start a crop of that weed growing in the jar!). Apparently when I did that, though, it disturbed the caterpillar or messed up his little "cavern", and later in the day I was very surprised to see him back on top of the dirt crawling around again... uh oh!

So the poor thing had to start all over again. Until I saw a YouTube video of one digging in some desert sand, I hadn't realized that they need a cave-like hole with some room to move around a bit. It's a lot of work for a worm to dig a hole like that! This little guy worked at it for a couple of days this time. It seemed every time he'd push some dirt aside, more would fall back into his hole. Maybe by then it was too dry or something. I did spritz a little water in there, hoping it would help. His first hole may have been helped by the purslane under some of the dirt, holding it up. Too bad I messed it up for him.

He finally got the job done... or good enough, anyway. By Friday morning, he was settled into a hole in the dirt and had sort of changed shape, although he was still green. The hole was still open at the top, but I guess he'd given up on completely covering himself... or maybe his time was just up and he had to quit. It was convenient for me, though, because I could see what was going on.

See below how he's sort of squished together, kind of like someone squeezed an accordian? I think he went from 3 inches long to less than 2 inches.

I didn't know how long it would take for him to change into a chrysalis. I thought it'd probably be about a day, like it takes for monarch caterpillars. So I waited, checking often during the day.

And I waited! One day... two days... I was beginning to wonder if something was wrong, but if I disturbed him a bit, he wiggled, so I assumed all was still well.

Finally yesterday morning, after 3 days, I checked once again, and I found this!

He'd finally done it overnight!

By last evening, the chrysalis had turned more of a brown color, which is normal.

Now we wait. I've read that it can take 10-14 days for him to come out as a moth... or being this late in the season, he might stay in there all winter. Time will tell, I guess. I'll let you know if/when anything happens!

The Very Hungry Caterpillar

Ever heard of the book The Very Hungry Caterpillar? Surely you have. If not, it's a very cute children's book about a very.... well, you got it.

That seems to be what I have! No, not the book... the caterpillar it tells about. He certainly has been hungrily eating his way through a LOT of purslane! Want to see how big he is now? Here he was on Wednesday:

And here on Saturday:

That's a nylon stocking at the top of the jar. I had the jar lid, with holes drilled in it, on for a while, but the sides of the jar got fogged up, and I was afraid it was too moist and things might get moldy, so I did the stocking thing. It took care of the moisture problem, plus now I can see him from the top, too, through the nylon.

Here are the close-ups, for you caterpillar lovers (are there any of you out there? heehee). Wednesday:

Saturday:

Just look at how much of that jar he takes up now! I'm wondering if I'm going to have to make him a bigger home. I didn't know he'd get that big. The moths really aren't so very big.

I'm thinking I should've left him in the garden, to clean up the purslane without my having to pick it for him! Ha! Actually, what I'm really thinking is: What would've happened to him if I hadn't brought him inside? I can't imagine him surviving out there.

White-Lined Sphinx... more

You may have notice that I added an update to my first post about the white-lined sphinx caterpillar. I'd found a link to a YouTube video explaining how to get the caterpillar to make its cocoon and then hatch into the moth. It showed this huge container that you have to put several inches of dirt into the bottom of for the caterpillar to burrow into. It seemed like a lot of bother, and I was tempted to just put him back into the garden and let him do his thing out there. But, curiousity got the best of me, and I decided to keep him in the house and give the captivity pupation a try.

It turned out that Courtney's mommy had done this before, and I asked her what size container she used, because I didn't want to have to come up with something that big. She had used something much smaller, so I decided a large peanut butter jar would suffice.

Yesterday morning I headed out to the garden to get the dirt for it, and wouldn'tcha know, right outside my back door happened to be a sphinx moth, busily sucking nectar from my hosta blooms! So I went back into the house, grabbed the camera and shot him for you. Of course, they don't stay in one spot very long, and their wings are constantly moving, so it was hard to get good pics. Here are the best I could do:

I wasn't even going to keep this second one, because it had turned out way too dark. But a little editing made it actually a kind of cool photo:

After that little photo session, I headed out to the garden once again. Since my little green guy seemed to like purslane, I needed to get some fresh sprigs to add to his new home, too. As you can see, I have a plentiful supply of that, even after having pulled out tons of it lately.

Here's the new caterpillar "house". Looks a bit like a terrarium, doesn't it? I guess it sort of is one. The purslane would probably root down if it didn't get eaten. It's a VERY persistent weed!

The transfer went smoothly, and here he is, all moved in:

Incidentally, you may have noticed the little "horn" on his back end. In the photos in my other post, that horn appears to be damaged, almost like it got burnt or something. However, it's back to normal now! Maybe he grew a new one? Too bad I didn't think to get a better shot of it. It's barely visible below, that tiny yellowish thing you can see:

He seems very happy in there, and he ate like crazy yesterday. I think he's already grown about half an inch, making him about 2 inches long now. I wonder when he'll start digging.

White-Lined Sphinx

It's that time of year, it seems... the time when butterflies and moths are reproducing. Remember the tiny egg I showed you last week in this post? Unfortunately, the egg I kept here did not hatch. They should only take 4 days to hatch, and mine had not hatched yet yesterday, which was 6 days after I found it. It was looking discolored and like it was drying up or something, so I threw it out. I haven't heard yet how Courtney's did. Maybe they weren't even monarch eggs.

Sunday afternoon when I was walking through the garden, I came across this guy:

Rather pretty, isn't he? Well, if you like caterpillars and worms, that is. I know at least a couple of you who definitely don't. He's pretty little... only about an inch and a half long. Nothing to fear. ;)

I found him on a purslane weed. Hurray - something that likes to eat purslane, one of my most hated weeds!

I saved him, of course. I was sure Courtney would be interested. I put him in her daddy's "critter cage", which was made for him many years ago by his Uncle Dale (a frequent commenter here).

There's a door on the other end of the cage that drops down when you open the latch. You can see it below. It's kind of hard to see the caterpillar through the screen, though.

Here's a better look:

I didn't know what kind of caterpillar it was, so I did some searching. Wow, are there ever a lot of different kinds of caterpillars in the world! There are many, many of them shown in this gallery, if you're interested or trying to identify something yourself. That's where I found this guy. It turns out he's a White-Lined Sphinx larva. They can be many different colors. I was just lucky that this one was so distinct.

I showed you a sphinx moth one time here, with even a video of it flying. Sphinx moths are often mistaken for hummingbirds.

After I put this caterpillar in the cage, it crawled up onto the screen and has remained there ever since. I don't know if he doesn't like being confined and is just going to die there, or if he's going to make his cocoon/chrysalis. According to this site (which also has a pic of the pupa stage), it only takes about 10 days for them to hatch. We shall see what happens, and of course if I get a moth, I'll show you a photo!

*Update: I wrote this post last night. This morning I noticed that the caterpillar was down on the leaves again, so I got some fresh purslane and replaced the old. Maybe there's hope yet! Then I did a little searching on how they pupate. Oh, dear... sounds like a lot of bother. They need soil to burrow into. See the video I found here. Do I do that, or do I just let him go back to the garden? ("Him"? "Her"? Do caterpillars have genders???)