BLACK SWALLOWTAIL BUTTERFLY …….. 1ST ONE TO EMERGE ON JUNE 16TH

I just raised 27 Black Swallowtail caterpillars and the first one that emerged as the adult butterfly was a MALE. He was perfect emerging on 6/16 and let me take about 10 photos of him before flying off to find a nice single lady to mate with !!!

I had a female butterfly lay 29 eggs on my fennel plants early in May as I started to see caterpillars mid May. I bring them inside to raise since there are too many predators who would love to eat them. Two of the caterpillars died while in my care but 27 went on to form their chrysalis. There should be two more emerging in hours since I can tell by the color of their chrysalis they turn very dark since these two had light green color. Most of the chrysalids are dark like the bark of a tree so they are a little harder to tell when they are getting close to emerging 😀

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