Observations from one of our citizen scientists ansel oommen

One of our citizen scientist's Ansel Oomenn raised some cabbage whites this summer and noticed how variable the color of their chrysalis can be. Being a little inquisitive, he did a little experiment to see how the colors in the caterpillars environment might affect the color of their chrysalis. This is something called "phenotypic plasticity" (an organisms phenotype - how it looks and behaves - can be altered by its environment) and has been observed in many other butterflies. He placed different colored tissue paper (green or white) or different materials - cardboard and potted plants - at their pupation site (where they turn from a caterpillar to a chrysalis) and he found... it did influence their color!