49/365: Mexican fritillary

I'm struggling to find macro inspiration for my film photography class, so I decided to try my hand at insects yesterday before the sun went down. Great in theory, disastrous in practice. Some interesting wasps and flies seemed promising at first, but I couldn't even get a good shot of them with the 7D, much less the much-slower-process involved with the film-only Elan 7ne. So I ratcheted back my expectations and looked through some of the Incense passion vines that survived our weak excuse for winter and found this Mexican fritillary caterpillar munching on some leaves. Mexican and Gulf fritillary caterpillars look almost identical, but the Mexicans have a white stripe running lengthwise down their bodies amidst the orange and black, whereas Gulf fritillaries are strictly orange and black. What made this guy stand out is that he's getting ready to molt, and you can see his skin has turned grey where it's detached from the body underneath and nearly ready to shed.

Here's a second, bonus shot I took, simply to give a better view of the fleeting grey coloration. By the time you read this, I'm sure it's already shed its skin is once again sporting its regular orange-black-white color scheme.

Camera: Canon 7D
Lens: Canon EF 100mm 2.8 macro with Vivitar 2x telextender

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