Subject: Cocooned????
Location: Columbus, GA
March 27, 2015 7:11 pm
Saw this on my porch railing. Pretty sure that it’s a moth or a butterfly. Don’t even know if that’s right. Will continue to watch to see if I can capture it’s release. I took video but couldn’t load that so I’m doing pics.
Signature: Jami S
Dear Jami,
This is a very exciting posting for us. We recognized your Chrysalis (proper term for the pupa of a butterfly) as a member of the Brush Footed Butterfly family Nymphalidae, but we did not recognize the species. We quickly located what appeared to be a match to a Red Spotted Purple chrysalis on BugGuide, but since the angle of view is different, we could not be certain. We found a similar camera angle on Nature Search, so we are now quite confident that we have properly identified the species as Limenitis arthemis astyanax. Adult Red Spotted Purples are well represented on our site, but we do not have any images of chrysalides. We especially love that your two images document the mobility of the chrysalis, which is generally thought of as an immobile stage of metamorphosis. We hope you are able to document the eclosion of this beautiful butterfly and can send us additional images in the near future.
This is so cool. Thanks so much.