Catalog Number: QMNS 1242
Collected By: Dr. Sarah Kropia & Dr. Omar Titum
Location: Costa Rica
In the 1990s, a team of lepidopterists studied a particular tropical butterfly’s lifecycle in the lab. The researchers found the timing of every part of the process remarkably predictable. Caterpillars hatched from eggs exactly one day after being laid. The first molt happened after three days. Eclosion (the emergence from a chrysalis) happened at twelve days. This insect’s perfectly timed life was not just a fascinating discovery, but to some, a thing of sublime natural beauty.
Just when the researchers were prepared to distill their very confident understanding of this creature’s developmental patterns into a paper, they observed something unexpected. Out of hundreds of observed eclosions, a single chrysalis opened up to reveal not a beautiful butterfly, but a grotesque caterpillar. It was not the same caterpillar from before, but something disturbingly inexplicable, the Eternapillar. As if triggered by some chemical signal, the remaining unopened chrysalises shriveled up and dropped to the ground.The paper was never finished. Several of the lepidopterists quietly pivoted their careers towards alternative insect orders.
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