As the temperature dropped Elvis the caterpillar slowed down, ready for his next life stage, to change into (hopefully) an adult inside his cocoon. But first he had to make a cocoon. He stopped eating and crawled to the bottom of his container onto the soil that I’d put there for him. For the first couple of days nothing seemed to happen, and I worried something had gone wrong & he had died.
Then he started excreting liquid through his skin & his cocoon started to form.
And so this is him now:
a full cocoon around him. We can’t see what is happening but hopefully he is developing ready to emerge as an eyed Hawkmoth in the Spring
