Right Before Your Eyes

Changes are happening!  Our friend is beginning a major transformation, and it has secured itself with spun silk to the netting at the top of the viewing box. It is indeed a Gulf Fritillary larva, Agraulis vanillae, and will eventually become a bright orange butterfly.  For the moment, however, it is losing color; it is much less brilliant than yesterday, and seemingly immobile, although it is hard at work producing a new skin under the old one.  This new skin will become the shell of the chrysalis, and then the waiting begins...