Tuesday, June 19, 2007

Black Swallowtail 2007 - UPDATE

Here's an update on the Black Swallowtail caterpillar we found on our parsley just 10 days ago.

We first noticed him on Saturday, June 9 and at that time he was extremely tiny, approximately 1/2". His size doubled to 1" by the following morning. He was now close to 2" by Thursday morning June 14th, Flag Day. This is when the 'changes' began...

He became very mobile and moved around alot, which is completely different on how he'd been behaving. We noticed that he 'purged' himself BIG time (yuk), which is an indication that changes were happening. JoAnne went out and fetched him a stick (good girl). By Thursday night at 6PMish he had chosen his spot on the stick and went to work.



In the first pictures he's swaying back and forth and securing himself with silk to the stick.



In the second picture you can see he's all secure - you can actually see the silk holding him in place. He stayed in this position, just like this and looked the same till Saturday morning.


When we woke on Saturday he had completed the process and was now a fully encased crysalis, see third picture. Now we wait...

See posting from Sunday, June 10, 2007 titled, "Eastern Black Swallowtail 2007"

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