Snow Flat

At around 8:30 in the morning, I spotted a pupa on a leaf of a Purple Yam (Dioscorea alata). I had never before seen one quite like it. So I decided to snip off the leaf and keep it in a breeding cage for observation. Of course, all my cages were fully occupied, as usual. So I placed this leaf with the pupa on a clean wad of paper kitchen towel inside a semi translucent white plastic bucket with a perforated lid. My intention was to observe it and maybe take a picture each day until "something" eclosed. The following afternoon, I saw that the pupal case was empty and there was a Skipper flying around inside the bucket. There were also some incredibly large pellets of frass on the paper towel. This was astonishing because the pellets were much bigger than the frass of Hawk Moth larvae (in neighbouring cages). I released this beautiful Skipper into our garden immediately and watch speed away out of sight.