Vanessa Changes

Well, I got an old caterpillar! Yesterday she had already started the pupa stage. Here she is spinning the attachment to hang on. Her spinnerets are right at her "neck."

Here she is getting ready to shed her old skin. I'm not sure how long she hung like this:


When I got up this morning this is what I found. My little caterpillar is going to be a butterfly! :)

She doesn't require any real care at this point. I only fed her for about 24 hours! One website I read just said to mist the cage every now and then to keep things from becoming too dry. For a descriptive article on this genus of butterfly click here (pdf).