I went out to look for more eggs, and found this!
I’m not sure if it’s fourth or fifth instar. I do know I need to cut another stalk and set it up in a second jar before I go about my day.
Oh, and what I thought was just a sort of bigger keeper turned out to be ginormous when I unfolded it and it popped out to full size. I need to make room for that. Hopefully I can take some comparison pictures later.
I did put this one in the other smaller keeper just in case it caught anything in the time it spent in the wild. Also, I’m more than a bit worried it might move on to munch the leaves the eggs are on, eating the eggs with them. I had definitely thought to use one of the smaller ones as my new “incubator”, and having a jump like this in size with an unexpected much later instar reminded me why I was thinking that. I also had planned to use the other smaller one as an infirmary, and, well, I’m already doing that.
There’s no visible sign of the recent addition being sick, but I’ve never brought one in this old before. Better safe than sorry.
None of the four eggs have hatched yet. So the count so far is:
4 eggs
1 cat
