Complete butterfly life cycle in central Missouri
I tried (and probably failed) to send pictures of the caterpillar and cocoon I had in my classroom.
The day he hatched, the cocoon turned transparent, and it hatched on September 10. We released it the next day. Attached are pictures of the caterpillar, his cocoon right after he completed it,
the cocoon just before it hatched,
a picture of him right after he hatched, still drying and next to his empty cocoon, and a final picture of him on a plant in our classroom. I unfortunately could not get a shot of his spread wings, but they were solid yellow, with a very narrow band of black at the edges. If you’d like, we took a few pictures of his face and wings with our hand-held microscope, which I can try to copy over and send if you’d like some 10x magnification views of him. Just let me know! Love your site,
Science Teacher in Missouri
Dear Science Teacher,
Your documentation of what we believe to be a Cloudless Sulphur, Phoebis sennae, are greatly appreciated. The image of the transparent chrysalis is most interesting. You can find out more about this species on BugGuide.