Cocoon Progress: Day 11-13

  Sorry for the delay of this post - 
 After about a week and a half after your caterpillar has spun its cocoon it would be a good idea to start checking it every day for any change in coloring.

  One morning we checked our cocoons and noticed a few darker shades near the top; a couple dark spots. We made a mental note to check later and headed out to go pick tomatoes at a friends'. 

Later that evening the cocoon was checked and we were shocked to find how it had changed in just a few hours.

 Notice the fairly even coloring of the cocoon? It is beginning to get a little more opaque but it is still really green.

 Here it is beginning to change color, this is when the cocoon itself somehow looses all color and becomes clear.

 This is several hours after we first noticed it was changing.

And THIS was that evening!  So it does not take much time at all for them to change.  When they reach this stage you want to start checking them pretty often.  Ours went and changed to this transparency right before bed (of course) but they did the polite thing and waited until the next morning to actually come out:)
Macbeth was really, really, REALLY clear when we got up the next morning and we watched him really closely until we went about our usual morning tasks of getting breakfast, cleaning up, etc. . . . We missed him hatching.

When they start hatching it goes by really fast so if someone doesn't notice it you will probably miss the whole thing. (It has happened enough to us where we finally get tired of sitting there, leave for three minutes, come back and there she is!)

TO BE CONTINUED . . . . . . .