Day 16: Now we wait

•

Metamorphosis Watch: Day 16  

We're back in a small package. It looks tranquil enough but inside the monarch butterfly chrysalis there is a evolutionary miracle in progress. The pieces are realigning themselves with the imaginal discs. Groups of cells that will become the recognizable butterfly we all know.

The fossil record of ancient Lepidopteran—moths and butterflies—go back at least 200 million years. Both groups go through metamorphosis: egg to larva to pupa to winged adult. So how did the miracle begin? When did the first caterpillar change itself into a winged adult and fly away? And how did it conceive to do such? How? How? How?

That is the miracle.

•