Nature photographer Kazuo Unno found a yellow chrysalis in his garden, and immediately began to film, hoping to capture the insect’s first moments as a butterfly. But it didn’t emerge that day, or the next.
On the third day, it began to rain, so he moved the chrysalis indoors. In Japanese, Unno writes, “It finally emerged at 5:15 p.m. when it was dark. I never thought it would take this long.”
Watch it slowly emerge and unfurl its petal-like wings in Unno’s 4K macro video. And don’t miss the last image.
The butterfly looks like it’s a Common Grass Yellow Butterfly (Eurema mandarina), a small Japanese insect with dark brown spots and/or black colored edges on its yellow wings, as well as matching yellow eyes. They’re found “in sunny grassland and forests from flatlands to mountains,” and is “seen from early spring of about March and found even at parks in Tokyo.”
Kazuo Unno is based on Komoro, Nagano, Japan and is also the chairman of the Japan Society of Natural Science Photography. There are more photos and videos on his blog.
Find photos of the common grass yellow butterfly’s life cycle here. iNaturalist also has lots of photos.
Plus, a few more metamorphosis videos and more from Unno on TKSST, including:
• Brilliant Peruvian butterflies filmed by Kazuo Unno
• The Green Dragontail Butterfly in slow motion
• Monarch Butterfly Metamorphosis in HD
• Metamorphosis, Earth Touch‘s iPhone butterfly film
• Blue morpho butterflies emerge from their chrysalises
• What happens to a caterpillar inside its chrysalis?
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