Wednesday, August 24, 2011

Larva to Pupa, Pupa to Ladybug

All this week, we've been watching as ladybug larvae morphed into pupae (you can click the photos to make them bigger).


And, after a good deal of waiting, and watching, we were finally rewarded, yesterday, with the sight of a ladybug struggling to emerge from the pupa stage.



We watched for quite a while, as it struggled around on the leaf, working in a circular pattern, from where the tail end of the shell was secured down.





By bedtime, it seemed to be resting, too.


This morning, all that remained, on the leaf, was an empty shell. The ladybug was nowhere to be seen, but it was chilly out, and most of the ladybugs, on the tree, were snuggled down under leaves, so it's possible it was nearby, but out of sight.


It's great to be a homeschooler.

4 comments:

Natalie PlanetSmarty said...

How neat that you were able to watch this transformation in action and even captured it on the camera!

Christy Killoran said...

That is amazing! Very cool that you got to see it happen.

Amy Dingmann said...

I have to say I've never seen that happen. How neat you were able to capture that on camera! Very, very neat!

Ticia said...

What a great set of shots.