Swallowtail caterpillar in my garden
 

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.

Bob

Swallowtail caterpillar in my garden
 

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.

Swallowtail caterpillar in my garden
 

enigma wrote:
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


I couldn't find him this afternoon. He's either moved on, or been eaten
by a bird. I looked on the nearby (very nearby) dill plants too.

Bob

Swallowtail caterpillar in my garden
 

zxcvbob wrote in
:

I couldn't find him this afternoon. He's either moved on,
or been eaten by a bird. I looked on the nearby (very
nearby) dill plants too.

if he was around 1.25" long when you saw him, he's gone now
because he's pupated :)
it's unlikely a bird ate it, as the stinky horns also taste
bad. my chickens leave them alone & not much gets by them.

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.

Swallowtail caterpillar in my garden
 

enigma wrote:
zxcvbob wrote in
:

I couldn't find him this afternoon. He's either moved on,
or been eaten by a bird. I looked on the nearby (very
nearby) dill plants too.

if he was around 1.25" long when you saw him, he's gone now
because he's pupated :)


I thought that might be the case, because that's how big it was
yesterday. They don't bury in the ground do they?

Bob

Swallowtail caterpillar in my garden
 

zxcvbob wrote in
:

enigma wrote:
zxcvbob wrote in
:

I couldn't find him this afternoon. He's either moved
on, or been eaten by a bird. I looked on the nearby
(very nearby) dill plants too.

if he was around 1.25" long when you saw him, he's gone
now
because he's pupated :)


I thought that might be the case, because that's how big it
was yesterday. They don't bury in the ground do they?

some do, yes.

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.

Swallowtail caterpillar in my garden
 

On Wed, 9 Jul 2008 12:36:40 +0000 (UTC), enigma
wrote:

zxcvbob wrote in
:

enigma wrote:
zxcvbob wrote in
:

I couldn't find him this afternoon. He's either moved
on, or been eaten by a bird. I looked on the nearby
(very nearby) dill plants too.

if he was around 1.25" long when you saw him, he's gone
now
because he's pupated :)


I thought that might be the case, because that's how big it
was yesterday. They don't bury in the ground do they?

some do, yes.

lee

There are several types of swallowtail butterflies. I
suspect you have a Black Swallowtail though. Maybe:

http://home.att.net/~larvalbugbio/swallowtails.html

http://www.butterfliesandmoths.org/species?l=1356

http://insects.tamu.edu/fieldguide/cimg266.html

If so the scientific name is "Papilio polyxenes asterius".
Use that and a search engine and you can find a lot more
info.

--
Leon Fisk
Grand Rapids MI/Zone 5b
Remove no.spam for email

Swallowtail caterpillar in my garden
 

I've been watching two similar caterpillars on some parley we have in
a pot on our deck.

One caterpillar was larger than the other and just yesterday I noticed
it crawling out of the pot. I followed it across the deck (it "jumped"
off the edge) and it crawled into a dense planting of climbing
hydrangea. I expect it will be pupating in there.

After another day of eating, the second caterpillar is almost as big
as the first one, so I'm expecting it to crawl off soon.

I was lucky to catch the first one in the act of making his get away.

-- michael