Eastern Black Swallowtail Caterpillar

Last Friday I went to check on my black swallowtail caterpillars and was a bit worried when I saw only one of the six that were there earlier that morning. I figured that I only have one left so I’ll build a screened enclosure that will still allow airflow but hopefully keep predators out (which is what I thought happened to the rest of the caterpillars). That night I started to get materials together from around the house. I had a few spare 2×4 boards and some leftover screen from a couple of previous projects. I made a bunch of quick cuts and started building. I didn’t finish that night because the mosquitoes were very bad on the patio. I spent the morning (Saturday) fishing with my dad and checked on the remaining caterpillar that afternoon. To my surprise there were two more caterpillars on the dill. Not brand new little ones but the larger ones that I thought had been eaten by birds or something.

Since I started building the enclosure I continued the build and finished building the frame that afternoon. The next step was to put screen around the whole frame but unfortunately the amount of screen on the roll of screen was a bit deceptive and although it looked like I had plenty to cover the enclosure, I only had enough screen to cover the top. I went to the hardware store and bought more screen and finished the screened enclosure on Sunday morning. It is rough and is not my most well made project but it does the job. I really can make things much nicer (see my other blog) and I will probably make a nicer one in preparation for next year after the mosquitoes are all either dead or dormant.

One one side of the enclosure I put all of the dill that I have left (I’ll need to buy more) and on the other I put a bunch of dead sticks in a pot of dirt so the caterpillars have somewhere to form their chrysalis. I probably need to provide an easier way for the caterpillars to get from the dill pots to the ground and will do that in the morning tomorrow.

Anyway, back to the story. On Monday when I went to water the dill I found another large caterpillar that wasn’t there a few days earlier. Since the dill was in short supply before my mom picked up these two pots for me I think the caterpillars moved on to the parsley. Now I have six caterpillars back. I really hope to photograph the chrysalis and the emergence. We’ll see if I manage soon enough. For now I have some more interesting pictures to share.

This caterpillar was very touchy. I didn’t have to touch it at all for it to expose its osmeterium. All I did was move the parsley pot and it reared up and told me to get away from its dinner! I rather like this picture but this one was a rather potent smelling one!

I found this one changing his suit. The half a little to the left of the middle seems to be a bit translucent and one of its feet is missing. I am not sure what happened to it but it seems to be okay since it is still alive and has almost eaten an entire dill plant by itself. I made him a prosthetic foot for the next picture using the clone stamp tool in Photoshop Elements.