on saturday, i went by a huge field of stinging nettles, and i noticed that the peacock caterpillars (inachis io, tagpfauenauge) had already left their community and spread up, so each one would have their own plant.
this is usually a sign that it won’t take long until pupation, which i thought makes a great time lapse subject.
i collected a total of 14 caterpillars, plenty of their feeding plant (=stinging nettle, urtica dioica), and went home to set up a terrarium that would fit their needs.
it took me some time to get what i needed: there should be all but one spot where they *wanted* to pupate, because time-lapse recordings require very fixed settings. eventually, i came up with a way: i let there be only one horizontal element where they could hang themselves up, and shaded that part of the terrarium.
soon, the first one settled down, and i could set up the gear.
- by the way: don’t assume that slippery glass would stop them from going anywhere - they just spread a thin carpet of silk-strands and go where *they* want.
