[Image description: Photos from multiple angles of a Giant Metallic Wood Boring Beetle. It is a deep purple-green, iridescent beetle about the length of the middle finger with big soulful eyes and an appetite for tree roots.
Video description: The beetle (in a plastic container) grooms by running its mouth across its foreleg repetitively.
Wanna know how this fluffy noodle became a beautiful butterfly? see it after the cut!!
[first picture taken in 15/3/2023 and last one taken in 28/3/2023]
jurema (juju for short) belongs to the species Anartia jatrophae, aka white peacock butterfly. i always used to see a lot of caterpillars from this species on my melissa plant.
just for context, jurema is a fairly common name for women in our home country, and also its the name of a tree
someday my aunt wanted melissa tea and found jurema amongst the leaves. she knows i love bugs so she took the leaf jurema was on and showed it to me! i couldnt be happier!!
so i decided to put jurema on a pot with melissa leaves and watch her growth with time
(Here are more pictures of juju on her baby days, including a video of her walking around her pot)
[video from 17/3/2023]
here we have juju enjoying a delicious meal. so cute, right?
i loved to watch her eat, its fantastic how such a tiny creature can eat so much. no wonder why my melissa plant is always full of holes on its leaves.
since jurema's peers would appear only on my melissa plant, i assumed jurema's species could only eat this specific kind of plant. so everyday i would clean jurema's pot and give her fresh melissa leaves to eat, until the day she became a cocoon.
[23/3/2023]
this species' crysalis is green, wich is funny because the caterpillars were black, i dont really know how this works...
As the days passed, jurema's cocoon became less green, and started to show some black spots. I got really worried because I thought juju got sick, but thankfully she grew up well. I assume these spots were only her wings starting to develop.
[28/3/2023]
This was the day jurema got out of the cocoon. I find these pictures really interesting because you can clearly see her eyes and wings under it.
And just a few minutes later, there she was!
All grown up and beautiful!!
After some pictures, I released Juju on my garden. I hope she enjoyed her stay!
My friends and I found this beetle on our college campus, we think it's a female elephant beetle. The photos were all taken by my friend (photography_dex on instagram).
