Life Stages of a Silk Worm

Last year in Kindergarten Alyssa and her classmates learned all about the stages of a butterfly's life and the changes that it goes through.  So, on April 21, 2011, when we discovered a caterpillar inside of a cocoon just outside of my bedroom window we decided that it would be a good idea for the family to watch as the caterpillar made it's amazing transformation and document all of what we were seeing. 

April 21, 2011 (Day 1):  White caterpillar (silk worm) found inside of a white cocoon. The caterpillar is lying with it's legs up and it's head facing towards the upper right side of the cocoon.

April 22, 2011 (Day 2):  The caterpillar's body no longer has legs. It appears to have rotated inside of the cocoon leaving it's head now in the bottom left side.  The tail end of the caterpillar appears to be changing color from white to a yellow tint and is slightly larger in size.

April 23, 2011 (Day 3):  The caterpillar has completely changed color from white to brown.  It has grown a little larger than it's original size and the head appears to be covered in a white fuzz.

April 24-May 12, 2011 (Days 4-22):  The appearance of the caterpillar has remained the same.  The body has only turned a little darker but there have been no other changes to report.  We are concerned that something may be wrong but will wait a few more days.

May 13, 2011 (Day 23): We discovered this morning that the cocoon has a hole in the upper right side of it and the body of the caterpillar appears to have been broken open.  Upon further inspection we noticed a single white moth within the screened window.  After researching we discovered that only the caterpillars that will become moths encase themselves within a cocoon.

Life stages of a silk worm:

Illustration taken from enchantedlearning.com