The four later instar in the keeper are eating like crazy. Four more eggs hatched since yesterday that I can find the larvae for, but there is at least one other egg “missing”, and I just might have missed finding the larva.
With eggs laid on a seedpod, it’s really hard to distinguish between seed and tiny milkweed sap bubble that they sometimes get. Also tricky to distinguish egg from the soft spikes that texture the pod until the egg is ready to hatch and the black head has formed enough to be dark and obvious.
They are so tiny at this first stage, I missed seeing one crawling around on a seedpod the first look over it. There may be others I did the same. I’m not certain of my egg count from the seedpods. The leaf I brought in yesterday definitely was only one.
The oldest larva in there has hit 2nd instar. I’m still learning how to eyeball which instar they are, but it’s not easy. I did find one guide that tells you by number of days, though if they are kept in a cooler environment that can slow growth.
I was trying to take a picture without using the flash of the new addition to the keeper–a small branch that I also tied another single twig to for a third possible hanging point for the chrysalis forming. I tied it on using jute. It’s pouring here, and using the flash didn’t work because of all of the glass it was bouncing off of. I’ll take a better picture of that another time.
But I did find this one funny.
