Nature is Metal

89th

Every year in the early days of summer, we get 2 monarch caterpillars and the kids watch them phase into a chrysalis and eventually a butterfly. It only takes a few weeks, a few leaves of milkweed, and it’s a remarkable sight to see to be honest.

This year, our first caterpillar went into chrysalis, and instead of emerging, we woke up one morning to find a string of silk from the hanging chrysalis down to the bottom of the container, after a quick Google it turned out T-flys will infect a caterpillar with parasitic eggs and once the caterpillar goes into chrysalis (hanging mode) the parasite eats the caterpillar from within, resulting in two or three fly larva climbing down a rope like a fucking mission impossible scene, and crawling around the jar until they turn into flies. Gross.

https://www.internationalbutterflybreeders.org/tachinid-fly-by-rose-franklin/