zxcvbob wrote in
:

I found it yesterday on a volunteer dill plant that grew up
in the pole beans. I thought it was a Monarch; they look
very similar. Today it has almost doubled in size already,
and the dill plant is just about gone. I might need to
move it to another dill plant, or that 5 foot tall carrot
plant that is blooming. I don't know if they like to be
moved... It's not gonna eat my beans if I leave it alone
and it runs out of dill, will it? The beans would be a
nice protected place for it to pupate. It's odd that
there's just one.

it will prefer dill if it spent it's first couple instars on
dill. it may eat the carrot (or Queen Anne's Lace), but i've
found they really prefer the original food plant they started
on. it won't touch your beans.
swallowtails deposit eggs one at a time on several different
plants in a 50-100' radius (maybe even wider. i am basing this
on my observatios in my yard, which has a lot of swallowtail
host plants). it's a good survival stratagy since only one
caterpiller per food plant means they're both harder for
predators to find & also likely to each have enough to eat.
does your caterpiller have the stinky orange horns that pop
out when touched?
lee
--
Last night while sitting in my chair
I pinged a host that wasn't there
It wasn't there again today
The host resolved to NSA.