Little Fishes Toddler Group

                                                                        Our Caterpillar Blog   (see below for photos of their progress)
1.  4th March
Five healthy baby 'Painted Lady' caterpillars arrived safely by post(!) two days ago.
They are very tiny (not quite 1 cm long) and cute! We noticed that when they were in
a slightly warmer place, they wriggled around a lot more.
They are in a pot which has a substance at the bottom which is their food.
We can see a small amount of 'webbing' (silk threading) around them which apparently is a good sign showing that they are alive! The container has to be kept out of direct sunlight to avoid condensation forming within it as this moisture could then cause the caterpillars to sicken and die!

We are hopeful that all our caterpillars will make it to becoming butterflies and we are looking forward to observing the exciting changes that will be taking place over the coming weeks.
 
2. 11th March
They've more than doubled in size during this week and the legs and hairs can be seen very easily. What looks like scratches on the container in the photo is actually lots of the silk thread ('webbing') which has been spun by the caterpillars.

3. 18th March
They are MASSIVE!!! Look how long and fat they've grown! The hairs are really obvious and you can see the stripes on their bodies. In case you're wondering . . . the yellowy rectangular bits that you can see on the sides of the pot are poo! Yuck!!