Marlene, what you have are Black Swallowtail Caterpillars. They look very similar to Monarchs which only use milkweeds for their caterpillars. Black Swallowtails use parsley, dill, fennel, anything that is in the umbelliferae family. These butterflies are just as beautiful and big as the Monarchs and I think you will enjoy watching them. I am attaching some pictures of a female Black Swallowtail laying eggs on some of my parsley a couple of years ago. (I hope they come through) Ms. Faith

I have two 5th instar Monarch caterpillars right now. They have been 5th instar for about 4 or 5 days now. Shouldn't they have already started to transform again? One came off the plant today and wandered around but then went back to it. Both are under a leaf now, not doing a whole lot, but moving every once in a while. The whole plant is in my house as the weather is marginal today & lately we have lost a few to wasps. I'm trying to come up with a way to keep them safe from wasps but keep them outside where it's a bit warmer Any thoughts? Thanks for your help!

Hi Michaela! How frustrating for you. I'm sorry. I am a total newbie who is raising Monarch, Gulf Fritillary, and Eastern Giant Swallowtail butterflies (I had a Black Swallowtail, but it didn't make it). This is my first year being successful at raising Monarchs. Several years ago, a family gave me lots of Monarch caterpillars. I didn't know anything about OE and all of them eclosed very deformed. Now I know it had to be OE. This year I went out and bought a 3-gallon Tropical Milkweed and have subsequently bought a few more as the caterpillar population has exploded! I have had a couple "cats" that started looking not so good, but they were just getting ready to transform into the next instar stage and once they shed their skin they looked great. All made their chrysalis, but one never emerged and so I "euthanized" it. Here is my set-up before cleaning this morning. There are 6 chrysalides and 9 fat cats. My house (north of Houston, where it's in the high 90s outside) is 78 inside and 60% humidity. It sounds like there is either a disease or parasite...I move caterpillars into this set-up when they are just a day or two from making their chrysalis. When the are really small, I keep them in a big glass vase. I load the environments with milkweed. I have been spotted out front in my PJs with scissors in hand cutting fresh milkweed to feed the gang (I'm sure people think I am nuts). I clean the frass off the blue lid when I swap out the plants, about every other day. You might consider enclosing them in an organza bag outside....contained and protected. This batch will bring my total, so far this year, to 30+ raised.

I sure hope so. I really admire what all of you are doing. I don't think I am cut out for dealing with that stuff. So I will just keep planting host plants, make cages around the hostas so the deer don't eat the chrysallis, buy emergency parsley and brush away spider webs on my garage wall where the Gulf fritillary caterpillars are still looking for spots. Hope it will help a bit. Sorry about sounding so down, this poor butterfly is still stuck in my head. And I drove by a place today I have been driving by for 20 years. There was a farm with cows and a nice pond. They just took down the beautiful huge trees for a retail development.