Last year Mrs Dowling's KC caterpillar was just about to change before the weekend, so Mrs Dowling took it home for a 'sleep-over' to video all the action. These videos below are not of Dino, but they show exactly what Dino would have done to change into a Chrysalis today.
Massive excitement in KP today with our caterpillar becoming a chrysalis this morning. We were able to catch it just as it transformed and was wriggling around to remove the caterpillar skin. We captured this on video and will post it very soon! Our caterpillar had to do lots of things to be able to complete this amazing transformation. These happened yesterday afternoon, last night and early this morning while we were at home, so we didn't get to see these stages. Last year Mrs Dowling's KC caterpillar was just about to change before the weekend, so Mrs Dowling took it home for a 'sleep-over' to video all the action. These videos below are not of Dino, but they show exactly what Dino would have done to change into a Chrysalis today. 1. The caterpillar stops eating, empties its stomach and wanders around for a few hours, testing the twigs for a secure place to turn into a chrysalis. It does this by twisting and bending its body over and over again. 2. The caterpillar has a rest and then spins a silk 'button' that it uses to keep itself on the twig when it changes to a chrysalis. The silk comes out in a fine thread from its spinneret under its head and the caterpillar weaves the button by moving its head from side to side. 3. The caterpillar stops spinning and moves forward on the twig. It turns around, puts its back part over the silk button and grabs it with its back claspers. It then very slowly and carefully tests if it can release all it legs/claspers from the twig to make its J shape, only hanging on by the back one. One by one, the caterpillar lets go and then lets itself drop! 4. The caterpillar hangs in the J shape and there are two things that happen just before it changes into a chrysalis. First its antennas go all droopy and start to shrivel up and second, it looks like it is doing sit-ups. 5. The caterpillar starts to shed its skin and you can see the wet chrysalis moving around. This last part is very tricky because the chrysalis does not want to fall off the twig. The chrysalis has to get rid of the old caterpillar skin and the clasper that was holding on to the silk and put in its own hook (cremaster) into the silk to keep hanging on. It twists and turns to do this. It is amazing! The chrysalis, or pupa, then dries and hardens. The chrysalis should transform into a Monarch butterfly in about 10 days! We can hardly wait!
0 Comments
Dino has been munching away and has grown so much this past week. Have a look! With the warmer weather and all that eating going on, we think it may not be too long until our caterpillar makes the transition to a Chrysalis. Great excitement in KP today when we saw how much our caterpillar is growing. It is about 6mm long now. Looking at it first thing this morning we could see that it had shed its skin. This will happen five times over the next couple of weeks. The caterpillar will eat the skin (this is normal) before it keeps munching away on the green leaf. Caterpillars keep on eating at this larva stage, so that's why we call Dino an 'eating machine'!
KP have named our caterpillar 'Dino' after a class vote. Dino is an eating machine, munching it's way through the leaves of the milkweed plant. Our caterpillar is growing every day!
Wednesday 16/11
Super excitement in KP on Friday! We arrived at school to find a caterpillar had hatched from the egg and it was tiny! We think it grew a little bit during the day; it must be the yummy leaf it is eating. We think it will be a very hungry caterpillar!
|
About UsKP is a class of 17 happy and enthusiastic children excited to be in Kindergarten at Helensburgh PS in 2016. Our teachers are Mrs Sue Dowling (Monday and Tuesday) and Mrs Julie Parkinson (Wednesday, Thursday and Friday) Our school is in NSW, Australia. Please feed Paddy some puppy treats and play ball with him. He loves it!
Please feed the friend of Rainbow Fish.
Archives
December 2016
Categories
All
|