Give me pupation or give me death

It was exciting to be able to web-conference with those of you in my biology class today. Thanks for all the great questions.

My morning was spent in the lab/bunkhouse doing "zoo". The work that happens in the lab is just as important as what goes on in the field. All the the caterpillars we collect are put into ziplock bags and labeled with:

1. Date
2. Family.
Remember the classification system: Kindom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus, Species in which living organisms are divided into homogenous groups by using hierarchical categories; the upper category includes all the lower ones.) For example, the classification for the stink bug Nezara viridula that you saw earlier in my blog looks like this:

Kingdom: Animalia

Phylum: Arthropoda

Class: Insecta

Order: Heteroptera

Family: Pentatomidae

Genus: Nezara

Species: viridula

3. Site location (collected with GPS)
4. Genus and species of the vegetation the specimen was found on
5. Instar: this denotes the developmental stage of of larval or nymphal forms of holometabolous or hemometabolous insects. Insects complete different numbers of instars depending upon species and environmental conditions, with caterpillars reaching instar four or five before pupating.

During zoo all the bags are hung on a rack for storage, frass is removed daily and change in developmental stages (instar) is noted. Caterpillars are observed for signs of parasitoids. Data for all specimens is then entered into the computer for future analysis.

What do you think these ovoid objects are?