I bought the kit pretty much exactly two years ago but didn't line up all my ducks until today. Distilled water, check. Spring water, check. Desk lamp, check. Motivation to actually get this puppy rolling, check. So here we've got a nutrient pack that looks like a tea bag but is labelled "DO NOT EAT" instead of bearing some pithy gurutastic platitude, soaking in what was distilled water until I poured it, basking in incandescent heat atop my piano. Hope you feel at home, little triops eggs in diapause.
The concept of diapause is almost as cool as metamorphosis, and both occur in triops. Awesomesauce.
Come out, come out, little nauplii!
In other metamorphic news, the swallowtail chrysalises that overwintered on our porch inside a bug habitat (sheltered from the damp but not from the cold - I figured that was better than their normal odds but still fairly natural conditions) have not eclosed. I've been seeing adult swallowtails around town this week so it seems like they should be emerging. It's entirely possible that they're dead. Let's hope we have better luck with the triops.
