Is It a Boy or a Girl? No, It's a Chrysalis!

Camouflaged by it's color and somewhat hidden location.

Here is the chrysalis that just this morning was a brightly colored larva

  At first I thought that maybe some small animal had come and eaten the larva (shown in previous post just three days ago), but upon further inspection I found that it has dramatically changed from just this morning.  It had let go of the cabbage plant stem and was only holding on by the top and bottom and it's middle "legs" were seemingly diminished.  I took a look at it before going out to run some errands around noon time and you could still see the vibrant coloration of it's body - nothing had really changed at that time.  (I should have known that something was happening when the only anchor was top and bottom.)  
   These are pictures of what I saw now known as a chrysalis, the pupa of a butterfly.  This is the third stage of the insect that goes through a complete metamorphosis also known as holometabolism.
  If you click on the bottom picture you can see that even the insect world knows how to use fibers!  You can see the very thin line of silk anchoring this pupa in place on either side.  Just how amazing is Mother Nature?!  (Actually all silk comes from the silk worm.)  

Another Inspiration!

Black Swallow Tail larva just hanging around my cabbage plant - which the little guy can have!

Same larva, just another view from above capturing its head, I don't think that it is eating the cabbage though.  

Here is the topside of the same larva.  I love the rows of black against the green and yellow.  It is a quite striking pattern.  Do Black Swallow Tail  butterfly larva like cabbage?  I can't say that I blame them if they don't, even if it is good for you.

  So this year having decided to plant cabbage, only because of the color of the foliage as it will not enter this body (bleh), I came across a brightly colored caterpillar.  Into the house I ran (as if the little fellow was going to run away with all those legs!) to grab my camera.
  When I came back outside it was still there, whew!. So snap snap snap, once again mother nature has provided an incredible sample of just what she can do!  Identifying it as a black swallow tail butterfly larvae with my handy dandy high tech library (computer) was very time consuming, it took around twenty point nine five seconds, but I did it.  I was determined, by golly.
  So here are some of the snaps that I took.  Click to enlarge them.  If it is still in the same place I will take some more pictures to see if it is planning to make this spot it's home while it turns into a butterfly, hope so.  Don't know if it needs protection, but mother nature has planned all that out I'm sure.  My plan is to make another quilt using this small insect as my inspiration.