Thursday, September 4, 2008

Caterpillars 1

Day 1 - 1st Sept
Brought home our little crawlies home. Makes my hairs stand. Eeeks........

Athena was too fearful, Aricia is not. She wants to touch the container which I'd love to. I didn't let her hold it coz' she's quite 'rough' and afraid the caterpillars might have been mishandled. Or worst still, she has been throwing things, she might suddenly throw it and the poor caterpillars will have internal injuries. Once she shook the container while I held on to it . *giddy giddy*


The caterpillars' Godma cleaned the containers for them. keke... I filmed it and half the time tell her to "hurry hurry" even before she step into the kitchen to throw away the faeces. Heehee! I was feeling so ... itchy. No wonder Athena also feels so fearful lah!
Since we have 2 pairs, we'd have them named like our family.
Noticed this 2 always stick together. We decided to name them the 2 girls. In another container, the caterpillars don't stick together that often. But I saw them head to head and moving together like courtship.
The two sisters are very hungry. I mean real hungry, they finished munching the leaves that MH put in, we put in one more they finished it fast.
The two of us' digestive system no good, no appetite to eat much. Signs of ?? aging?
Gotta tell you our caterpillars - we are breeding special and high-class butterflies, okay.........they're on top of the piano = get to enjoy lovely music. Ahem.... let me rephrase that last sentence-trash music.

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Day 2- Tuesday
The day passed with the 2 sisters eating alot.(they are always together) Really alot. When we brought home, MH put 2 leaves. Last night when Godma cleaned the container, we threw in another leaf. This morning, threw in one, they finished quickly. Threw in another. Amazing! No wonder Eric Carle wrote that book.

The caterpillars eating. Very yucky to see the eyes.
Daytime, noticed too one of the older folks have been hanging around the netting area. Did notice something white but it didn't stick to it, probably still finding a suitable fengshui spot.

In the night, the sisters are playing alongside. Serious! They kept moving together, at one point I thought they were doing syncronise swimming.(moving symmetrically and same direction).
As for the 'us', old folks not moving much. The leaf was still the previous night's. One decided to crawl up to the netting again, suspect is the same one last night.
Later, very late in the night, noticed that one moving the body in a funny way, and noticed the caterpillar trying to push out white silk or dunno what threads. Very poor thing, it's like how our body move when we're vomitting??

See the white thread.
At 2am, the caterpillar was hanging in 'J'
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Day 3- Wednesday
MH had prepared me for this, the head will drop out. So the head was on the base of container. Thank goodness last night when Godma cleaned the containers, I told her to put more leaves for both so that I won't interfere with the 'forming into pupa' caterpillar and can feed the other the same time.

In these picture, notice how the 2 sisters keep sticking together? The 3 pictures are of the pupa which has hardened-looking covering (can't get good photos) At one point, I saw the pupa shaking vigorously. Had it recorded down but will upload later.
Later in the night, noticed the 2 sisters have spun threads too. Thought they were dead but they were still moving in that 'J' position. Playing?

What happened to me? Athena says the other lazy one is me. The container have not been changed, alot of faeces but we can't interefere with movements.

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