Natural recycling can be educational but sometimes elicits compassion or even sympathy from human observers, as when a lion catches a gazelle or a rattler bites a rabbit. But that's life, which precedes and follows death. Nonetheless, sometimes the inexorable process of recycling can be dramatically illustrated. One recycling event occurred at a local school where a teacher encouraged students to bring in animals and plants for educational purposes. Leave it on the twig it is hanging from, put it in the front of the room, and have students check its development each day or so.
Nothing happens for a long time, until finally one day someone notices that something is emerging.
This cocoon turned out to be one wrapped in a hickory leaf. In late spring the students got to meet the resident, a luna moth, one of our most beautiful insects. Magnificent does not overstate their appearance. Pale green, with a purple splash on the front wing and a spot that looks like an eye on each back wing. Long trailing extensions on the rear wings are longer than those of swallowtail butterflies.