Swallowtail Butterfly Caterpillar Molting (realtime)

This Ford's Indra Swallowtail caterpillar has outgrown its skin and needs to shed it. The caterpillar stopped feeding and began preparing for this event 2-3 days earlier. During that time, it developed a new skin under the old one, and also started growing a new head capsule (one of the very few hard-skeletal caterpillar structures) below the old one. As molting time approaches, strange body movements take place as it begins to loosen the old skin. Then, it wriggles free of the old skin using a crawling motion. When finally clear of the old skin, it knocks its old head capsule free (seen as the small black button-shaped object on the caterpillar's face).

Note that the caterpillar's new head capsule is now a light creamy color, and is still soft. Over the next 2 hours or so, the head capsule will darken as it hardens into exoskeleton. A short while later, the caterpillar will turn about-face and proceed to eat its old skin (see next video), the protein providing some extra nurishment as it begins its next larval phase (instar).

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