Tomorrow Belongs To Me!

The dear little angel, below, some 9mm long, is spending five months in deepest meditation - contemplating terrorizing anything that moves in the midsummer tree tops, irrespective of size. If it's going to be male it will behave like an Uruk Hai orc; if female, a fire-breathing dragon. It seeks nothing short of world domination. Our task, as People of Purple Persuasion, is to help it realize that ambition...

The good news is that all six of the larvae I'm following through in the Savernake Forest area, Wilts, survived December (and November). This is a good omen, for truly great Purple Emperor years are born during winters of low predation (though I would have liked  a slightly bigger sample).  

And here's another, of the unusual all-brown colour form -