Black Swallowtail Butterfly

[NYCorchidman]

Originally Posted by JaneEyre

Wow! They just roam around the house? I would be afraid to step on them. Very cool. These are gorgeous butterflies. And caterpillars are cute, too. I love the markings.
Thanks for sharing, I enjoyed the pictures.

The caterpillars stay on the host plant until they are ready to turn into chrysalis. They wander around until they find a suitable place to settle. That takes less than half day usually. If I get lucky enough and usually I do, I find them attaching themselves somewhere with silk.
Then it takes about one day to become chrysalis.

I almost stepped on one on the floor. lol
Thanks to their bright coloring, it's easy to spot them.

[NYCorchidman]

Originally Posted by vjo

How cool is that?!!! You do this in your apartment? Dont the caterpillars eat your orchids too? Where do you get the eggs to start with or do you start with the butterflies? I would love to do something like this.....Jean

Thanks!
I do this in my apartment. Caterpillars only eat their specific host plants. For this particular kind, they only eat parsley, dills, fennels, and rue.
They also eat celery and carrot leaves I think.

I started them all as eggs. When I go to the farmer's market, I see butterflies fly around over the dills. I follow them. Sometimes they lay eggs. then I go pick that plant with eggs and buy it and bring it home.
As they get big, they eat A LOT!

I tried starting with the adults, but getting them to lay eggs in captivity is not very easy.

You can also catch caterpillars and grow, but often they have parasites in them already and you will be surprised by what you see later.

Even better, if you have a garden, even a small one, plant their host plants. They will come and lay eggs.

If you want to try and grow these, I can tell you how. It's rather simple.

[NYCorchidman]

Originally Posted by nenella

Beautiful! I enjoyed looking at all your pics. Thanks for posting!

You're welcome, I'm glad.

[Wynn Dee13]

Very interesting! Thanks for sharing! These butterflies are natural to where you live? The only butterflies I see where I live are monarch butterflies and I don't see them like I used to. We have a large yard and garden so you would think I would see them more. We also have many flowers that butterflies like.

It's interesting you find the eggs at the farmers market. I thought you ordered them or something. They are very pretty!

[Tindomul]

Very nice butterflies. At first I thought those were red-spotted purples, but they are different. Thanks for sharing.

[DelawareJim]

I managed to shoot a few at Clear Creek State Park back in May. Enjoy.







Cheers.
Jim

[FairyInTheFlowers]

WOAH!!!!! This is EXTREMELY cool!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[NYCorchidman]

Originally Posted by Wynn Dee13

Very interesting! Thanks for sharing! These butterflies are natural to where you live? The only butterflies I see where I live are monarch butterflies and I don't see them like I used to. We have a large yard and garden so you would think I would see them more. We also have many flowers that butterflies like.

It's interesting you find the eggs at the farmers market. I thought you ordered them or something. They are very pretty!

Welcome!
They are very common throughout much of North America. More common at certain area than others, though, I'm sure.
Having lots of flowers that butterflies like is great, but the best way to see if they are really around is to plant their host plants. They will come and lay eggs.

I am quite an observer and being a former butterfly hobby collector, I know what to look for.

[NYCorchidman]

Originally Posted by DelawareJim

I managed to shoot a few at Clear Creek State Park back in May. Enjoy.







Cheers.
Jim

Thanks for posting, these are great pictures of Tiger Swallowtails. Well, I see one Black Swallowtail in the last two pictures though.

Sometimes you see many of them ( even much bigger group than pictured here) drinking from the forest floor, or along river stream.