Often your caterpillar turns into a pupa so quickly you miss the whole thing!  Someone with more patience than me caught the "wiggle" in this video.  Note that the caterpillar wiggles and squirms right out of his skin.  The last thing to pop off  is his head!


http://i.imgur.com/3OEY4Xn.mp4

Busy summer!  We've released 50 monarchs so far and currently I have 6 growing.  I also found 6 newly laid eggs on some of the new growth milkweed.  If you trim your milkweed plants throughout the summer, the plants will send out new shoots.  These are highly favored by the female monarchs as the plants will provide better nutrition for the growing caterpillars than the older plants.  In fact, some believe that the milkweed plants that have been growing all summer provide insufficient nutrition for the "super" generation which flies  on to Texas.