Baby Mourning Cloaks

I found several Mourning Cloak (Nymphalis antiopa) caterpillars and chrysalises on a small restroom strcuture in Mason park these last few days. This one is just getting started:

I’m not sure how long it takes one to spin a cocoon. This caterpillar and another were in exactly the same positions 18 hours later.

Here’s the finished cocoon from one who got started a little earlier. If it had been on a tree instead of a brick building I would have walked right past it without giving it a second look:

This is what it will look like when it emerges:

This entry was posted on Monday, April 7th, 2008 at 9:02 PM and is filed under Birding. You can follow any responses to this entry through the Atom feed. You can make a comment, Digg this story, or trackback from your own site.