Black Swallowtail Butterfly

[NYCorchidman]

I've been growing black swallowtail butterfly from eggs to adults. I feed them with rue, dill, and parsley.
They take about a month to complete the growth cycle.

Very interesting to see them eat and poop so much and so fast!

It's amazing to see the butterfly come out of the chrysalis. I used to frame them, but now I just let them fly away.

One interesting thing is that once the caterpillars reach full size, they leave the feeding plant and roam around looking for a place to attach themselves and become chrysalis. I find chrysalis at odd places around the apartment. It's touch to find them sometimes but always fun!

Two of them chose my orchids for their sites.
First two photos show an adult coming out on a spike of green complex paph. The next set show a green chrysalis on a miltoniopsis.

The last picture is from one caterpillar in less than two hours. All they do is eat, rest, poop and grow.

[NYCorchidman]

The first picture shows three eggs on the dill flowers. Can you find them all? hint,,,they are light yellow.

Once they hatch, they stay on there until they eat everything! One of the pictures show how they devoured the entire plant leaving only the stems.

A few pictures of the adults. The dark one with blue on the wings are females, while males have lots of yellow and hardly no blue spots.

Then some pictures of chrysalis I found at odd places like the bottom of bookshelf and even on electric cord by the bed. The one by the bed is almost black just like its environment. amazing what they can do!

Enjoy~

[nenella]

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

[NYCorchidman]

Originally Posted by nenella

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

You're welcome, I'm glad.

[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

[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.

[Marty]

Very nice! I did that last year, kids had a lot of fun letting the butterflies go...after flying around the house for a while, hehe

[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.

[Lagoon]

So beautiful to look at -- Thanks for posting the photo's

[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.