Privet Hawkmoth Chrysalic - is he 'getting ready' or is something wrong? moths

[edit] sorry, dumb typo in title!

Hi all, I have a Privet Hawkmoth (sourthern UK), who went into his chrysalis last August. Since then he's been residing in a tupperware box (with air holes), lined with kitchen paper that's changed every 2 weeks, in the bottom of my fridge. He gets misted with sterile (boiled & cooled) water every friday.

Whenever he's been handled or misted, he would wiggle quite slowly, but in the last 3 weeks he's turned much darker and stopped moving altogether. It's coming up on his emergence time in the next 2 weeks, the weather's warming up nicely so I'm planning to put him into his emergence cage at the end of the month. I've been gradually bringing up the temperature in the fridge over the last month, and moved him to a warmer shelf up top.

Question - is the turning darker and stopping of movement a sign that he's getting ready, maybe triggered by the warmer refrigerator? Or is that bad? I looked up some lepidoptera forums and they said if it turns dark and goes slimy, it's dead. My guy is still dry and clean. Could it it mean he's 'hunkered down' for a second-year emergence?

Once he's out of the fridge and set up in the cage, how long does it normally take for him to emerge once he warms up? A day, a week? I couldn't find any info on that online.

Cheers all! I hope my guy's okay, after 9 months of caring for him since he was a big fat-erpiller I'm really attached to him.

Submitted May 16, 2016 at 03:54PM by GraphicDesignMonkey http://ift.tt/1ThaQyi moths