My Butterfly

Oh, yes. You read the title correctly. MY black swallowtail butterfly. And that is indeed my hand in the photo, bringing my little darling to sit on some basil in the sun to warm her wings before taking to the air.

I found five tiny black swallowtail caterpillars amongst my dill. Now, we had had a few of them before, but, unfortunately, the wasps took them. I wasn't about to let that happen again, especially not to a threatened species, so I took the little creatures in, put them in a container with wax paper on top (never use plastic wrap because the off-gassing will kill them) and fed them through all five of their instars until they became pupae. Thus far, three have become butterflies, and there are two more to go. This is pretty impressive considering that only one or two caterpillars of any litter survive to adulthood.

UPDATE: I've just figured out the sex difference between the butterflies. All of my black swallowtails posted are of the female. My first male emerged at night so I could not get a photo of him. I have several photos of my second male, and they might be posted in a few weeks. I currently have two male pupas (brown) and two females (green), and a caterpillar on the way whose sex I don't know.

I have also raised four cabbage white butterflies, one white tiger moth, one owlet moth, and another type of owlet moth which I have to release tomorrow morning. This means that I have successfully raised seven butterflies and three moths from caterpillar all the way to adulthood. I'm pretty pleased with myself, so I apologize for gloating.

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