I had my “sweet butterfly bliss” moment in the garden this afternoon when I spotted a brand new caterpillar, well four.
In April I introduced a new butterfly host plant to the garden. Throughout the year a local park, which has a large butterfly house and a beautiful butterfly garden, hosts a native plant sale. We frequent Rotary Park often, walking through the butterfly house to get ideas and learn more about butterflies that call Southwest Florida their home. I love this sale because local nurseries, as well as master gardeners sell their plants, an abundance of host plants and nectar plants for butterflies, at reasonable prices and in one location. Each time I try to bring home a new host plant, hoping to attract another species to our garden.
I am happy to say, less than three months later, one of the two dill plants now has four baby eastern black swallowtail (papilio polyzenes asterius) caterpillars. (Papilio is the Latin word for butterfly.) I decided to plant the dill in pots, as I have never had this plant before. The third move for one of the pots deemed to be my lucky location. So, needless to say, into the butterfly house they went with cuttings from my dill plant, which right now has plenty of growth.
This swallowtail, apparently is one of the most common butterflies, as they can be found throughout southern Canada, as well as many locations in the United States – eastern to mid-west and southwest to northern Mexico.
The butterfly’s wingspan is 6.9 to 8.4 centimeters and the male and female have different markings, making it easier to tell them apart. As with other butterflies, the female is larger with the upper surface of her wings black with two rows of yellow spots, which are smaller and lighter, as well as a powdery iridescent blue. The male, on the other hand, have both larger and brighter rows of yellow spots and his powdery iridescent blue is less distinguished. Another cool characteristic, the red spot with a black bulls-eye in the middle of the hind wings.
The caterpillar, I am very interested in watching grow as it changes pretty drastically as it goes through its instars. The swallowtails, I have noticed, take quite a bit of time to go through all of its instars, with this one being no exception. This caterpillar takes anywhere from 10 to 30 days before entering the chrysalis stage, which can last up to 18 days.
When the caterpillars are young they have a “white saddle,” according to the University of Florida. The website also stated that it’s white because of the “uric acid deposits,” which protects them from “phototoxic chemicals” consumed from their diet. As the caterpillar mature, it will turn green with black long bands across its body with yellow spots.
The four caterpillars I found seem to still be in its first instar, as photos from my research show yellow spots starting to appear in the second instar. Hopefully these caterpillars make it to their last instar and chrysalis. I sure would love to see the butterfly, as the female has some how snuck into the garden and laid eggs, multiple times, without me noticing.
