Giant Swallowtail - healthy and beautiful

12 years ago

Just wanted to let everyone know the first of three Giant Swallowtail pupas eclosed and it is healthy, strong and beautiful and now flitting around outside.

I lost an entire cage of Pipevine Swallowtails to a tiny wasp infestatiion earlier this year so this release is especially meaningful to me.

I have a lot of BST's in various stages of growth and have had one eclose that was healthy, too. I'm bringing in all the eggs and tiny cats I find and raising them inside.

I've planted more Rue this year, as that host plant covers both the Giant and Black Swallowtail butterflies and the plants are perennial for me and attactive throughout the season. Also have a lot of parsley started, which will be grown in pots on the deck. These new parsley plants will replace the ones which will expire this season. If the fennel comes back next spring, that will be icing on the cake. The spicebush plants have all rooted well enough to make it through this terrible heat this summer so I'm hopeful they are becoming established and will return next year. The pipevines are growing well but I've not had any more eggs since the spring. Maybe next year. If so, I'll bring them inside, where I can better protect them from those tiny wasps.

Have only seen two Monarchs all season and neither left eggs. I have plenty of milkweed and can only hope I have a few stop by on their fall trip to Mexico.

I'm slowly learning what butterfly and hummingbird plants will grow well here in my hot and humid area and discarding those plants that don't do well. Each year is better than the last.

Mary

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Comments (3)

MissSherry
12 years ago
That's wonderful that your giant swallowtail emerged perfect, Mary! There's one hanging out in the cage this morning - when I release him - 'looks to be a beautiful, smallish male - he'll be #29, with a good many still in the chrysalis.
I'm raising some pipevine swallowtails in a big cage, but have left the rest outside. I was nervous about doing that after seeing what happened to yours, but mine have never been parasitized - knock on wood! - so hopefully, they'll be okay.
I'm SOOOOO ready for summer to end!! The older I get, the less I can stand the heat.
Sherry
butterflymomok
12 years ago
Mary, congrats on your Giant Swallowtail eclosing "healthy and beautiful". I lost my one and only larva, and all the eggs I found weren't viable. Do you grow your rue in full sun? I have had trouble getting it established here. The eggs and larva were found on a Zanthoxylum clava-herculis tree I bought this spring, so hopefully, there will be more action next year.

I saw two Monarchs yesterday, the first in six or more weeks. So, we may start seeing them again. How have the A variegatas made it through the heat? Mine have really taken a beating. I have one that has held on to its leaves, and two that shed their leaves, are putting on new foliage. I have 3 still in pots which I'll keep until next season. These are in pots that are tall to allow for lots of root expansion. The gopher is active again since the rains, so I don't want to tempt him/her. He got a 4 foot MW this week. One day it was there; the next there was no sign it had ever existed, like I had just imagined it. It's hard to comprehend that all the leaves, etc, could just disappear overnight. This was probably a Speciosa. I collected the seeds from plants in a field in Kentucky. The Monarchs loved to lay eggs on the big leaves. : (

It has been the worst summer I can remember, and according to the weather bureau, July was the hottest ever in Oklahoma, and anywhere in the US in recorded history. We just never cooled down.

Hope you have gotten some of the rains this week. It's another cloudy, humid day. But, I won't complain as the heat was worse. However, a new crop of mosquitos hatched out and they are blood thirsty!

Sandy
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Kellybird, usually the favorite host plant for giant swallowtails here is Ptelea trifoliata - the common names for this plant are hops tree or wafer ash, but it's not related to hops vines or ash trees, it's in the citrus family. This butterfly came from rue - I have five rue plants in my garden, and they're used by both giant and black swallowtails. Some of the caterpillars that I raised in the same group with the above butterfly came from my 'Louisiana Sweet' orange tree. I LOVE this tree! It comes through the winter with only minimal cold damage on just a little bit of the newest, new growth, and it's very vigorous - I've had it about 4? years, and it's about ?12' tall and about ? 7' wide. It's covered with little green oranges right now. The rue plants and the orange tree are both evergreen, and I found this batch of hatchling cats early in the season, before the Pteleas had leafed out, on new growth on the rues and the orange tree - these make new growth early each spring. Most of the Pteleas are real slow to get new growth in the spring, although a few behave differently from the rest and get new leaves fairly early - there's no rhyme or reason to it. I've had a 'Meyer Improved' lemon, and it was so puny and got so damaged by even minor frosts that I got rid of it. I only found one or two giant swallowtail cats on it the entire time I had it. I read an article about citrus trees, and it said that 'Louisiana Sweet' oranges and 'Owari' satsumas are the most cold hardy of the citrus trees, and that 'Louisiana Sweet' is very vigorous - I can attest to that! I'm really too far north to be growing citrus, but it's working out with this one. Sherry
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Thanks for the info Fighting8r. I have noticed the same about the gsts being focused on "getting out" and nothing else, lol, I have yet to see one nectar on the lantana that I put in the reptarium when I have to keep them in a while depending on when they eclose, I don't think I have had to keep one over 24 hrs yet though, or not much longer than that anyway. You are so right about this forum slowing down, lol, this is my first "season" raising caterpillars, and I think those last cats I found were late babies, so to speak, I haven't seen anymore eggs since I found those cats. I wonder do the females that are released late still lay eggs even at this time of year? Hopefuly if they do, they won't lay them in my yard, hehe, I am hoping that I will be done when these last two cats I have pupate. Hopefully they will do so before I leave for Miami, in less than two weeks, or I will have to find a "sitter" for them. Sadly, I did lose two last instar cats this weekend, still clueless as to what happened to them, one of them was about 6 wks old, but he appeared to be perfectly healthy, I was shocked when I saw something was wrong because he was doing so well. Totally unexpected! And the other one that died, had already purged and began process of preparing to pupate, he either fell out of his sling or did not make a sling, and flipped upside down, eventually he got detached from the silk pad anchoring his lower body, he laid on his side and moved around for a while, and he was still in j looking form, and had even shrunk so that his body looked really segmented, if that makes sense, but he never pupated, I guess sometimes, nature steps in and takes its course, no matter what you do, who knows.
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Mary Leek
Original Author
12 years ago
I thank you, ladies, for your good wishes.

Sherry, I have four more tiny Giant Swallowtail cats I'm raising inside and there is a large one on the Rue I've not yet attempted to remove and bring inside. I discovered him two nights ago when I was harvesting fresh Rue for the little cats I have inside. Each time I've checked on him, he looks like he's not moved at all so thought I'd wait until he begins eating again before I bother him. I can't believe I've missed him this long, as I check the Rue very carefully each day. At least the wasps have missed him, too.

Sandy, I agree with you and Sherry, I will be so relieved to see the end of this summer heat. We have had some rain the past two days and it's been wonderful. I hope you get some, too.

The little wild red ring is still green and has all of it's leaves. My red ring baby that bloomed this spring recently lost all of it's leaves and then the stalk slowly turned brown and died. I don't know if the roots survived but surely hope so. Three other babies dried up and disappeared, too, even with me watering them regularly. I finally set a lawn chair over them to help shade the remainder that still had leaves and they're all still green. I am hoping, since they're a wild plant, that the roots somehow survive and we'll see new growth next spring.

My Rue gets quite a bit of sun and I deep water it at least every other day. I might also try to grow some in a big pot on the deck next season, where it would have limited direct sun, then dappled most of the day, just to see how it would do up there. The parsley does well on the deck and it makes it easy to watch for eggs. I think Rue is a pretty plant, rather lacy looking to me, with it's light green scalloped leaves. I've got new Rue seedlings I just transplanted into holding pots and I've just planted more seed that I'll overwinter in the greenhouse. I feel the Rue does much better in our heat than the parsley.

~Mary

Giant Swallowtail - healthy and beautiful

Comments (3)

MissSherry

butterflymomok

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Mary Leek
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Giant Swallowtail - healthy and beautiful

Comments (3)

MissSherry

butterflymomok

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Mary LeekOriginal Author

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Mary Leek
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