Caterpillar Molting Super Hi-Res HD Timelapse

Watch in 720p HD full-screen as a much larger than life timelapse shows this Saturnia albofasciata 3rd instar caterpillar molt its skin. This whole process (preparation, molting and post-molting recovery) takes 2-3 days but all the real action happens during the actual shedding of the skin in only a few minutes.

the caterpillar spends about 2 days preparing to molt by growing a new skin, hairs, spines and head capsule under the old skin. A few hours of squirming and strange body contortions allow the caterpillar to "loosen" it's old skin, and then finally, it crawls its way out and allows it's new skin and head capsule to firm-up for a few hours before moving off to continue feeding. The old head capsule can be seen as a black button-like disk on the caterpillar's head, as the old skin is pushed off. The caterpillar brushes its head side to side to knock the old capsule off. The new head capsule is much larger and still a creamy skin-like color until it hardens and changes to its normal black color like the old one.

The soundtrack is "310 Solo " from the "Solo" CD by Technician (yours truly).
Full artist discography, MP3 downloads and CDs are available at the Technician website: HTTP://technician.jcmdi.com

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[shin1300]

how long is the raw video?

[jcmegabyte]

This is only about 30 minutes-worth of real-time action, so the amount of timelapse speed-up is about 40x  :-)

[madsharukh]

They must go through alot of pain during this process.

I mean you see those things start coming out and she/he is moving like she/he is in great torture. But i guess she really wants to be a caterpillar.

[jcmegabyte]

It does look like it could be painful, but somehow I think that by the time it's ready to molt, the skin is already "dead" and just hanging there. Molting it is probably like taking off a tight sweater! XD

[DisforDelight]

@,@ omg.. that was awesome !, HD makes it really outta this world .. lol.. thanks for posting !!! DisforDelight

[jcmegabyte]

It's interesting how even the smallest things in nature can be really amazing when seen close-up and in HD! Thanks so much for the nice comment and all your attention :-)

[jcmegabyte]

That's a good question! Caterpillar skins don't grow as the caterpillar does, so each time it's old skin gets too tight, it has to make a new baggy one one under it's old skin. When the new one is "ready to wear", it molts the old tight skin, and continues gowing into the new baggy one. Caterpillars typically molt 4-6 times as they grow from the size of the tiny little egg, all the up to 4-inches long or more for larger butterflies and moths. Their growth is amazing :-) Thanks for watching!

[jcmegabyte]

Thanks so much for the view and great comment! :-)

[ewagreg]

AMAZING ..BEAUTIFUL video..super music ..NICE pictures ....FANTASTIC!!!!!!!!!!!

[jcmegabyte]

I've noticed that with a great many species. It's not always obvious, but most take at least 1-2 days sitting idle whilst preparing to molt. I guess it's a big deal to shed your skin! XD