Photo taken on Jun 16, 2013 | Photo by Andrei Katrovskiy
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Prequel: for some time I was curious, what butterflies come out from fluffy ornamented caterpillars which I saw very often. In spite of their obvious abundance, I could not find the caterpillars in online albums, and a “key to insect larvae” book laughed at me: to identify a caterpillar, I would need to count hooks on the bottom surface of the caterpillar's paws: how much rows of them there are, in which row the hooks are larger or more curved, etc.

Thus I decided to follow the simplest way: to get a butterfly from a caterpillar. To avoid bothering about it's food preferences, I took rather large exemplar which was travelling along a road. When I was a child, I was told that travelling along roads is characteristic for caterpillars intending to pupate (disclaimer: that is not always true).

So, I put the caterpillar in a jar and it turned into a pupa. The result happened to be marvelous: after few weeks I got someone very fluffy, plump, of bright ginger color, with large eyes covered by long forelock, and, and… with a heart-figure on each wing! A real kawaii-monster :).

species Drinker Euthrix potatoria