I was a little concerned about my other Orange-Barred chrysalis because it kind of squished itself up against the side of the critter keeper instead of hanging from the cheesecloth like most of them do. I've also been concerned about my Orange-Barred cat. Since last night it's been acting strange. Now, I can definitely tell it's ready to make a chrysalis. The color has faded and it even silked a big spot (inconveniently right under the other chrysalis). But then it was on the bottom of the cage. I laid him on the cheesecloth to get a good look at him and his butt stuck to the cheesecloth so I've left him like that.
FYI, if you have a chrysalis that doesn't make a sling or falls down because your stupid Polydamas cats ate through the stem, they can still be viable! We have a whole pop-up mesh thingie at MOSI we put all those odd chrysalises in and lots of them come out just fine. In fact, some caterpillars make so little silk (I'm looking at you, Great Southern Whites) that we can't pin them so we just throw them in a mesh pop-up anyway. You might have noticed the Atalas in my picture the other day were like that as well. The important thing is to make sure they have something to cling to so they can pull themselves out of the chrysalis. Mesh is good because they can hook their legs in it. Plastic is too smooth so if you have them in a plastic cage, throw some twigs and stuff in there, too.
Anyway, I really just came here to post a photo I took of my Orange-Barred Sulphur chrysalis. It's probably going to emerge soon and I'll probably be asleep when it does. And when I wake up it will just want to fly away. But the good news is - it's a female! So I raised a boy and a girl. Remember how the male had the orange bar (hence, the name)? Well, the female doesn't have that but has a bunch of dark gray dots like I mentioned before. That's how I know it's a female.
I actually had a little girl ask me if a caterpillar was male or female this past weekend and I explained to her (and mom and sister) that the gender wasn't determined until they were in the chrysalis. At least, that's what I've read. I also told them there are ways to look at Monarch chrysalises (that's what they had been raising) to tell the gender and to Google it. I haven't looked at it in a while but there's a very small indented stripe thing that tells you. Personally, I like the surprise and my vision is bad enough without me going cross-eyed looking at chrysalises that close. But that kind of made me wonder - does that mean the gender is decided as soon as the butterfly makes the chrysalis? I thought it would be determined at some point during the metamorphosis, but if the Monarch analysis thing is true, then it would happen at the point they make the chrysalis. One of these days I swear I'm going to visit the butterfly exhibit up at UF and I'm taking a list of questions with me and I'm just going to harass those entomologists all day long.
Okay, Monarch Watch
http://www.monarchwatch.org/bi... says you can gender the caterpillars but you'd have to dissect them. And have a microscope. And be a better scientist than me. Because I would have a hard time dissecting a caterpillar even if I knew it was for the greater good. But I still wonder if this applies to other species. Hmm...
