Day 15: The miracle begins

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Metamorphosis Watch: Day 15  

Day of excitement! 

Reams of text have been written about this: articles, columns, books, theses. I even wrote about it in my third book for UT Press: Ephemeral by Nature. 

We first learned about butterfly metamorphosis in third or fourth grade. Were we mystified? Well, yes!

How could this be? One life-form becomes another while all the while retaining its singular identity. But somehow until you sit and watch the process up-close, it still doesn't sink-in what an absolute evolutionary miracle it is. 

Today began with the monarch butterfly caterpillar we have been watching for two weeks hanging head down. Its cremaster was embedded in a silk pad it had just spun with its spinneret. It has to do this because it needs to molt its last larval skin and create an isolation chamber to reform itself.

Is it just a green goo that has to rearrange its cells? No, not really. Because inside that caterpillar all along were clumps of cells called imaginal discs that will now begin to grow into the butterfly organs it will need for its new winged life. The nascent wings, legs, proboscis, eyes, are there all along and now it is time for them to mature. But at no time does this wonderful life-form stop breathing. Its heart still beats.  

You could say it goes on hiatus but that suggests it is somehow resting and it isn't, the monarch has a lot of work to do.

And it all happens inside its chrysalis. A perfect chartreuse green jewel. It is now a pupa.

Stay tuned.

     

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