Last Saturday was a sad day for us. One unexpected development with a malformed chrysalis led to mistakes that could have caused the loss of up to all six chrysalises we had at the time if I had done things in a different order and/or way.
I fretted a lot overnight. I kept checking the monarch disease pages, dismissed OE and pondered “black death” after one older site pic I found that had a pure black chrysalis. Nope…nope…behold!
What a difference! Continue reading “Guardianship update: 16th August 2018 #2”
Two firsts today: I happened to catch a J transforming into chrysalis. If I had strolled by sooner, I might not have realized it was that far along if not for the visually striking difference between larvae skin and sudden bulge of light green. Also, this happened…
We had a fake out. One of the 5th instar was on the screen lid on the side where all the chrysalises are. Later, I thought it fell, but it was happily munching on a leaf. I don’t know how folks keep track of greater numbers.
The temperature took a nosedive today, and it’s cool enough that I’m in jeans and a sweatshirt quite comfortably (My low blood pressure is helping that). The cool damp in the air instead of the humidly stifling feeling is quite a change! I’m wondering how much difference this will make for the larvae growth rate, as the forecast is predicting this will be the norm for a few more days until the temps start to hit low 80s F again. Continue reading “Guardianship update: 12th August 2018”
So much to my surprise, and with a twinge of guilt, at late suppertime yesterday (which was the 10th for folks pondering the time difference), I saw Junior poised in preparation for J already. Since the four older instar had been out of the incubator for a while, I really didn’t realize how big Junior had grown, especially since the last to form a chrysalis was the biggest 5th instar (and bigger than Junior). Continue reading “Guardianship update: 11th August 2018”
Yesterday was busy, so I didn’t get a chance to post news. When I cleaned out the incubator yesterday, I found a single newly born. I think one bit I thought was an egg was really just a tiny milkweed sap bubble. I checked over the seed pods with a magnifying glass several times to be sure there were no remaining eggs before I put them back outside–they take up a lot of room in the incubator, and I wanted to bring in a stem with more leaves as all the larvae were getting bigger. Continue reading “Guardianship update: 8th August 2018”
By the time I woke up today, this had happened:
Well, the joke’s on me. The biggest of the four in the keeper is the only one that isn’t currently hanging in their J in this really bad picture below. It’s still munching away on a leaf. Continue reading “Guardianship update: 5th August 2018”
