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claireisme

New Monarch Chrysalis Suddenly Flat??

5 years ago
last modified: 5 years ago

I noticed a monarch caterpillar in the J-shape yesterday and everything looked fine. I saw it made a healthy looking pale green chrysalis by the afternoon to evening. Today, I checked at around noon and it looks squashed and obviously dead. I looked up common possible parasites and the only thing I could find were tachinid flies or chalcid wasps, but it did make a healthy-looking chrysalis yesterday and there are no strings hanging down. Also, it looked like there would only be a hole from where the wasps emerge rather than a completely flattened chrysalis. I admit I only saw it twice before today so I could have missed any warning signs. Does anyone know of any parasites or predators that would leave a chrysalis flat like it was squashed? Also, there was another one next to it that has remained untouched so far.

This is the best picture I could get with my bad camera and awkward angle. It has been dead for a while, but I'm not sure how long since I haven't looked at it for about 24 hours.