Julia Heliconian / Dryas iulia, fourth instar

Macro shot of a tiny tropical caterpillar in the ENMAX Conservatory at the Calgary Zoo, taken on 14 October 2011. I never realized till last year that caterpillars have several different stages (just the caterpillar itself, not pupa, etc.), just to make ID even more complicated, ha - this is called the fourth instar stage. If my description is incorrect, perhaps someone could correct me - thanks!

Later, found this:

"Throughout the larval stage a caterpillar has to shed it's skin several times in order to accommodate further growth. The time between these sheddings is called an "instar" of which there are usually an average of five and spans two to four weeks. When we use the term a "third instar" caterpillar we are saying that it has shed twice. Immediately upon shedding it's old skin the larva fills with air. This allows the new skin to take on that size giving the caterpillar as much room as possible to grow into this new size. After each of these transformations it is possible that the caterpillar can be a different colour or appearance from the time before. Therefore, depending on which instar a caterpillar is in, understanding the instars can play a roll in the identification process." home.cogeco.ca/~lunker/stagesbf.htm

We had snow overnight - it looks beautiful out, but I really wish I had new tires on my car! One of the big Tire places is looking around for replacement tires for me, and I really hope that some can be found! It never occurred to me that I'd have a problem finding tires that fit! My Honda is about 13 years old and I bought it, second-hand, about nine years ago. The absolute last thing I want to have to even consider is replacing my vehicle!!

Mid-evening, and I've just noticed that my Contacts new images page has reverted to the "old" layout of small thumbnails (which I prefer in many ways). Flickr has been strange for me in various ways for maybe the last couple of weeks. Getting a wee bit tiresome.

SNOWFALL WARNING in effect for the City of Calgary.