Under the microscope, the silverspot eggs look like opal sea urchins - round but slightly flattened on top and bottom, bumpy and ridged and glowing pearly in the cool fiber optic light. The semi-transparent egg case tricks the eye: look this way and see the opal, that way to see the caterpillar inside.

Suddenly, one caterpillar begins to hatch.

His head emerges first with his body still coiled tightly within the egg, reminiscent of the mythical serpent swallowing its own tail. He breaks through the soft egg casing with giant black pincer-like jaws and squeezes a fraction of his soft body through the opening. His front legs grip the white paper on which his egg sits, and he pulls himself further from the egg. Pull, squeeze, rest. Pull, squeeze, rest.

This 1-mm creature is one of only 108 caterpillars hatched from over 500 silverspot eggs. Butterfly Lab staff members must work to keep them all alive long enough to be released at Cascade Head ten months from now. Every caterpillar counts.