Oh, Anney, they are beautiful, and are going to become gorgeous! We have the caterpillars on our rue plant at this point--our parsley and fennel went away in the early summer (guess who ate them?).
Thank you for letting the caterpillars eat and grow and develop. I hope a swallowtail lands on your shoulder!

They look healthy. Good luck with your butterfly project!

I think the one in the foreground of the bottom picture must be getting ready to pupate. It hasn't moved any on the stem and is larger and darker than the others.

Here is an amazing time-lapse film of an Indra Swallowtail going into pupation. It appears to me that the pupal husk-cover erupts from under the skin of the caterpillar. Really neat.

Was this by accident? or did you plan/hope this would happen.

I must grow some parsley next year. very cool indeed!

Joe

No, I didn't hopefully plan it! I grew parsley last year and they didn't find it. I just started one seed and it's growing like crazy in 8 inches of soil, and I already have enough dried parsley from that plant to last for a couple of years. Today I saw a black swallowtail fluttering around it, so maybe there will be more babies before it gets too cold.

Anney, this is so cool. When I was a kid, I used to find caterpillars that looked really similar to these on the fennel plants around my school yard. I never knew what kind of butterflies they turned into, but we kids used to marvel at the velvety smoothness and beauty of the larvae. How nice to see that you've decided to "share" your parsley with them so they can live out the early part of their lives in peace and safety.

This clip blows my mind! When these caterpillars feel threatened, they brandish their red "horns", which are usually hidden inside their heads!!!!!

Lol @ "my fierce horns". YES! Ok, so it is the same kind of caterpillar that I used to see when I was little. Those horns are freaky. And IIRC, they emit some kind of nasty scent. I wasn't a big fan of actually touching them, but I could have sworn kids coming away from touching them with an icky odor on their hands.

spaghetina

You're probably right. Many swallowtail instars have bright coloration and a terrible taste to birds as defense mechanisms.

Cool! I have a soft spot for swallowtail caterpillars. Not only are they pretty, but when I first started working on an organic farm, when we harvested the parsley for market we always were careful not to disturb them. That always really hit a chord with me. I thought how many commercial farms probably spray pesticides to kill this type of thing, and here we were carefully cutting stems by hand and making sure we didn't disturb them.

When you have this realization standing in a quiet sun-drenched field in the middle of a beautiful, peaceful day, it's just an incredible feeling. Years later I still get it when I'm cutting the parsley and see these guys.

Okay, I guess I'm being sappy... but cool pictures anney!

:)
Dee

My parsley plant is about 6" tall in the middle of a 25' x 30' plot of 1 ft deep oats and is covered with the critters. It amazes me some that they can zero in on the parlsey in the middle of the oats.

Bon appetit (or however it's spelled)!

Nice. Hope you get them to stick around a while for some fall viewing.

In case anyone is interested, the caterpillar in the foreground of the second picture in the first post WAS preparing to pupate. Here it is now.

{{gwi:110093}}

As you can see, the new pupa is mostly green, while the underside is yellow. I assume it will eventually all turn brown. The picture clearly shows the strand holding it to the stem of the parsley, and some of the caterpillar shape is visible inside.

There is another caterpillar that is ready for pupation. It also has "gone still" and while the head remains attached to the stem as though it's holding on with its mouth, the portion of its body just below the head is curved outward, with the rest of its body tapering closer to the stem to where the bottom is still attached. I don't see any sign of the strand that will attach the upper part of its body to the stem, but maybe it hasn't done that yet. The pupation beyond this point is pretty rapid -- the one that's a pupa now took only one day from appearing like a large curved caterpillar "statue" and the pupa. The younger ones are still feeding and grasp the stems and leaves with all their feet, so they lie flat and move around.

They can live for more than six months in the pupal stage, to emerge in the Spring. The parsley it's attached to will die with winter freezes, so I'll have to find a protected spot outside for this one and the other ones when they pupate.

And I thought I was crazy. I have been looking out for a preying mantis that somehow has taken up resident in my potted dwarf lime trees a few weeks ago. and have been watching out for the little guy ever since. And here you are Anney taking caring of a bunch of swallowtail caterpillars.

Anney, I too "raised" some black swallowtail caterpillars (two batches - the guys in the last batch just left over the past few days). Only one stayed on the parsley in his cocoon (? not sure of terminology for this). The rest "wandered away" to find a place and I saw several of them leaving the parsley. But although they are faster than one might think, I didn't have to time follow them to see where they ended up. So now I am hesitant to prune some of the shrubs because what if they're hanging (literally) out in them?

I didn't know it could take 6 months! I watch my guy who's attached to the parsley plant every day, at the beginning, I would see it wiggle. I thought I would see a swallowtail before winter though :-(

I'vd had parsley for years and this is the first time I have ever had this happen! It's so exciting...

Good luck with your nursery!

ditnc

One of the original caterpillars in my first post seems to be missing or hidden, so I don't know where it went. Maybe it joined yours!

I think they emerge from the cocoons if the weather's warm enough and just stay inside if it's cool or freezing -- we're having night temps in the high 40s and low 50s. So a lot must depend on when they pupate -- Spring-time pupa probably do emerge within a few weeks.

anney, are all the rest pupating on the parsley plants (what's left of them!)? I kept going out to check my caterpillars and they went from 6 to 5 to 4, etc...so I posted on the butterfly forum, and someone said they "wander a long way" to pupate (I guess that's the word). I kept track of a few for about 10 feet (they get lost and go in circles trying to figure out where to go) and after an hour or so, decided I would probably never know where they would end up. But at least birds weren't eating them, they were just naturally leaving!

The one on my parsley plant is brown and is attached with one string. It's so small compared to the caterpillar! Anyway, I check him a few times a day...I am glad he stayed! We're having low temps here at night too (LOVE IT!).

How will you protect your guy on the parsley plant that's going to die? Leave him on the plant and just put the dead plant in a covered place?

ditnc

I don't know where they'd go since the plants are on a 12-foot elevated deck. If the rest of them pupate where they are, yes, I'll leave them on the dead parsley stems and put the stems in a plastic trash can on its side on the deck. Then they can emerge whenever nature stirs them!

Anney, I wish I could install a "cat-cam" so I could get whatever is going to happen on video (I know, how nerdy!). It will be interesting to see whether your guys stay on the plant or go wandering! I have an elevated deck, but it's only about 5' and there is lattice, so they crawled down that to who knows where? There's a camelia directly next to the deck on one side near the parsley and I was hoping they would go there. Otherwise, they must have been exhausted if they went to another shrub or tree. But if they're on the camelia, I can't see them. My parsley guy is very well camouflaged!

I just read an article which said "After pupating for around 9-11 days, longer if its cooler out, or if it pupates over the winter, the adult butterfly emerges from its chysalis."

So if the one pupa I have on my parsely is going to emerge before winter, it should be any day now! But we have had 70's/80s during the days and 50/60s during the nights lately. Anyone know if he will probably emerge before winter???