A few days ago, Jim heard a noise from the normally quiet residents of the Curry Foster Homes before I had gotten up. They live in tiny homes (jars) next to where we drink our tea and coffee.
The sleeping beauty had emerged! It was the White-streaked Prominent (Ianassa lignicolor). This was its first of many shots to be taken. And this was the view through the jar.
What a transformation from a colorful larva to its adult form, eh. (October 28, 2022)
The browns would make it very hard to spot in the wild. In fact, it was hard to see even when we initially looked in the jar for it.
Another angle!
Face first. And it was very hard to see its eyes.
Now it was time to examine the case. It had an outer case and then the pupa case inside. The transparent part had been wedged against the jar. Certainly this had been a viewing portal just for me. LOL
Now my question was how did it get out? There was no obvious opening. So I decided to spray it with a bit of water to soften it. Would the opening become apparent then?
Finally, I found how it got out. The hole was quite small at the end where the open pupa case was facing. Here in this shot I had cut it open further to get the full view. Just to the right of the pupa case, you can see the exuvia of the larva.
Before I had open the case, I shined my UV light on it. Near the right end something glowed.
In fact, it turned out to be the exuvia. I certainly now wished I had shone the UV on when I had first gotten the larva.
So I took it back to a Post Oak for its release. In this case, there was not much drama in the release. However, it had gotten a four and half months of no worries at the Curry Foster Home. 🙂
Fascinating post! The insect world is endlessly interesting. And I have a friend who’s been making an insect repellent using American beautyberries for years. Didn’t know they’d been reclassified to the mint family. Used to be in Verbenaceae.
I don’t understand most of the paper, but from the introduction, at the time of that paper, the family move had already occurred. The rest of the paper is about some gene that seems important in plant evolution (I don’t know how). I searched the scientific name for the species plus classification in google scholar and this paper is more relevant: https://www.nature.com/articles/srep34343. From this paper’s introduction, it looks like the changes in Verbenaceae and Lamiacae (spelling?) started being discussed in mid 1990s based on morphology and continue to be revised through now with molecular evidence. References 1-16 seem to be the main ones discussing the history of these taxonomic changes but I didn’t click through to them on my phone. Let me know if you want me to poke around for something more specific.
That was a drastic change from larva to adult. Such a difference in coloration. Seems ive read about the zebra stripes before. Interesting.
Fascinating post! The insect world is endlessly interesting. And I have a friend who’s been making an insect repellent using American beautyberries for years. Didn’t know they’d been reclassified to the mint family. Used to be in Verbenaceae.
Crazy the changes. I think this is the study where it changed…https://www.mdpi.com/2223-7747/10/9/1805 Pretty detailed and over my head.
Yep, super technical. Thanks for sharing the link though.
👍🏼😊
I don’t understand most of the paper, but from the introduction, at the time of that paper, the family move had already occurred. The rest of the paper is about some gene that seems important in plant evolution (I don’t know how). I searched the scientific name for the species plus classification in google scholar and this paper is more relevant: https://www.nature.com/articles/srep34343. From this paper’s introduction, it looks like the changes in Verbenaceae and Lamiacae (spelling?) started being discussed in mid 1990s based on morphology and continue to be revised through now with molecular evidence. References 1-16 seem to be the main ones discussing the history of these taxonomic changes but I didn’t click through to them on my phone. Let me know if you want me to poke around for something more specific.
Thanks for tracking this down, Claire!
Yes, Claire thank you for the additional info. I guess I was way behind in knowing that it had moved. (Not surprising) Science marches on! Yeah!
It’s a beauty!!
😃