It's a tough life for the outdoor Swallowtails

* Warning - this post contains some gruesome photos of
predation and parasitism! *

I have been watching four Papilio machaon Swallowtail chrysalises that I discovered outside whilst still caterpillars in pre-pupation. Some pretty horrible things happened to them!

But before I get to that, let's look at some caterpillars and their unpleasant demise. I found six of them dead with what looked like a sort of sooty mould on their bodies. I've researched and cannot find what it is. This didn't stop other bugs from checking them out, although I can't be sure they actually fed on the dead caterpillar because I wouldn't have thought it was entirely healthy to do so!

Bug nymphs checking out and possibly feeding on the dead caterpillar.
Note that little wasp on the right - that has significance later on in this story!

Here's another one I found hanging from a fennel stalk.
Some ants and bug nymphs checking it out.

An ant looking into what I think is a mouldy bit....
and see how deflated the caterpillar looks too.

Now chrysalises - remember the one that I got to witness pupating a couple of posts back? Unfortunately this is what I found happening the following morning. It made me sick to the stomach to see this after having watched the pupation as I felt closer to it because of that. I shouldn't attach human emotion to it but I couldn't help it. Ants have to eat too but it just seemed so unfair ..... and ugh!

This poor fresh chrysalis didn't stand a chance with a load of ants swarming over it.
After pupation you can see that the inside of the chrysalis is just yellow goo at this point.

Going back to the first chrysalis that I found, I just couldn't believe (1) how I even noticed it and (2) why it chose this spot to pupate in. I had bunged a pot containing Ophiopogon planiscapus 'nigrescens' by my potting shed as it was full of weeds and needed repotting. However I haven't had a chance to do that yet.....

You would never have known.....but there it is in the photo on the right.

Now we get on to the subject of parasitism. I did a little research after taking photos of these wasps and discovered an American site (link given later) which gave me a lot of very interesting info on Chalcid wasps. Somehow they are quick to discover the caterpillar in pre-pupation and hang around waiting for it to pupate, then lay their eggs in the still soft chrysalis. The poor caterpillar and freshly pupated chrysalis twitch a lot trying to dislodge the wasps but it's futile. Chalcid wasps by the way are supposed to be a gardener's friend and are used in biological control, as they keep down numbers of the less desirable Lepidoptera species. And the desirable ones too!  

No sooner had it settled down to pupate, the wasps arrived.
I don't know the ID of the larger one with the long antennae
but I later found out the smaller ones are Chalcid wasps.

Then blow me down if another caterpillar decided to pupate in the same plant pot! On this one I only spied the larger unknown wasp and a Red Velvet Mite. I'm not sure what is happening with this chrysalis, as 19 days later nothing has emerged and whilst it has a dark mark on one side, it doesn't show the tell-tale signs that it has been parasitised by Chalcid wasps. Maybe the other kind of wasp will hatch out of it!

Another chysalis in the same pot - still waiting to see what happens to it!
But I don't think there's a butterfly forming inside.

And here's the 4th one I found which also has a Chalcid wasp on it, and some days later
as you can see on the right, part of the body of the chrysalis turned a strange brown colour.
Since I took this photo it also shows the tell-tale signs that it's been parasitised by a Chalcid wasp.

And what are these markings? I got this info from this very interesting site which although it is talking about Black Swallowtails, they have very similar chrysalises and I could see the same thing happening to this species. It's the dark markings that you see below, and far less obvious, a change in the shape of the lower abdomen. Far more info about this in the link above.

The membrane between these segments turns darker
which is the giveaway that it's been parasitised.

Because I keep an eye on them regularly I was lucky to get to watch some of the little wasps hatch out of the first chrysalis!

Left: A Chalcid wasp is actually stuck in the exit hole!
However the wasps had made another hole on the other side.

Here's one just emerging.

Still emerging but note that sticky stuff in the right hand picture.

The poor thing got stuck - seemed its leg was stuck on
the remnants of the sticky stuff I mentioned above.
I was kind and got a blade of grass and helped it off!

So out of four chrysalises, one got eaten by ants, two were parasitised by Chalcid wasps and the last one I'm still waiting to see what happens, but I don't think a butterfly is going to emerge as it's well over due and I haven't seen any signs of life from the chrysalis. They will often twitch if you breath on them or tickle them with something like a blade of grass. A bit of a shame as I'd hoped to be able to say "ta-da, here's one that made it", against all the odds. But the other day whilst doing some deadheading guess what I found in the Valerian that had flopped over into the grass? It certainly doesn't look like any parasites emerged.....

Hopefully an adult Papilio machaon managed to eclose. It certainly looks like it although
I also note brown markings between the segments. I hope this is just staining from
the pupal fluid that is expelled upon eclosion.

I do appreciate that all that I've documented above is quite normal in the insect world. Numbers have to be kept in check and predation and parasitism is common place. It's just a real eye-opener when you get to witness it all first hand and now makes me want to cheer for every adult butterfly that I see as I know so many didn't make it! 

As for my indoor raised Swallowtails, out of a total of 42, two failed to eclose and one sustained a wing injury whilst wildly flapping prior to putting it outside, so it had to be put down. So I've released 39 healthy adults into the wild but have yet to see signs of any having returned to lay eggs here - probably a good thing as I don't want to be tempted any more! But it has been a great learning curve to also study what happens to them in real life and note how different it is when they are raised indoors with no predators and seemingly, no disease either.

It's been a wonderful experience and I've learned tons more about them this year but I'm not planning on raising them every year. I'm still searching in the stinging nettles in the hope of finding some caterpillars belonging to one of the more common species - here's hoping I'll find some one day!

Raising Swallowtails - Part 11 - Video of a Pupation

I thought Part 10 would be the end of this series but then I thought I'd see if I could get a video of one of my caterpillars pupating. I've missed nearly all of them doing it but one day I noticed one of them twitching and wriggling a bit, so decided to set up my makeshift studio (lots of kitchen paper and blue tack) and set my camera video running, just in case. 

Well the twitching went on for a long time so my Cybershot batteries were running low and I switched to my Powershot SX50, which just about fitted OK on the mini tripod although it sagged a bit. But it annoyingly kept turning itself off every 16 minutes, so I had an egg timer in my pocket set to 15 mins so I could keep running to check and reset it filming!

At this point a friend on facebook who has the same camera told me how to switch the auto power down setting to off, but as I went downstairs to reset the camera, guess what started happening? Luckily there was enough time before the camera turned itself off to capture the whole pupation, and then I reset it to film some more over a period of time. So with the help of my OH and his Mac software, 'we' have edited this little film to show the pupation and how the newly formed chrysalis goes about changing afterwards into the shape that it stays like until a butterfly emerges from it, about 11 to 16 days later.

So with thanks to (another) friend who mentioned that I could make the video appear bigger here rather than the automatic small size it comes in at when linking to Youtube here it is .... and if you are reading this via an email subscription, you will not see this video so you will have to come direct to the blog to view it.

I'm onto the second batch of caterpillars/chrysalises now and am glad I'm not coming across more tiny caterpillars outside, as food is getting a bit low! There are already quite a few large caterpillars outside on the dill and fennel, and we've now found three of them settled down in pre-pupation outside. Two were in completely inappropriate places so had to be brought inside and the third I am keeping an eye on outside to see what happens so more about that in a later post..... I can already see that life is tough for the outdoor ones compared to my pampered indoor pets. 

Of the two we found outside and brought in, one had decided that a nice yellow string lying flat on the ground was a good place to pupate! In an effort to try to tidy up in the aftermath of the septic tank installation, we had strung a line to try to redefine lawn and gravel drive and started edging after the ground was softened by recent rain. Thankfully that caterpillar hadn't yet made its cradle so was brought indoors where it quickly settled down and pupated! One thing I noticed by bringing it indoors is how much more green it was than my indoor raised caterpillars - and in fact of the indoor ones, the dill fed caterpillars are more green than the fennel fed ones. 

Outdoor caterpillar comes in and shows its Ringo face (butt end!) one last time before pupating.

The other one was on a woody weed stem which had to be taken out; this was at the edge of my gravel drive but the ground levels had changed since the pipework had been laid and I was waiting until after my houseleeks had flowered before having to remove them (and the weeds!). That one is now indoors too, on its weed stem.

Something that I have only recently learned is how to sex the Swallowtail butterfly. As male and female are pretty much identical in markings I hadn't realised until after some research that there is a difference.... males have claspers at the end of their abdomen which they use to grab the female whilst mating. It's not very apparent or easy to see as the claspers are usually held together, but it seems to me that the female has a more flat end to her abdomen, which seems to be fatter as well, whilst the male is slimmer and has a pointy end. So I think in the last batch there were far more males than females, which is a good thing given there are only limited food resources round here, and I don't want them laying eggs on the neighbours' carrot leaves and being considered as pests!

I shared this before but now realise this is a male, as you can clearly see the claspers
(pointy bits) at the end of the abdomen.

Lastly, and I know this is a disjointed post, but this is what comes of having shared stuff on facebook then realising I hadn't done so here, here are some pics of one of the caterpillars making its cradle. Before taking the photos I had never really thought about how they did this, but having watched for a while on a rainy afternoon they actually spend a fair amount of time repetitively making silk threads and weaving them from side to side, so the cradle is made up of many threads. It is very tough stuff as after they've eclosed I have to pull off the chrysalis shell and some of this silk from the mesh lid that they are so fond of and the threads get left behind. I still can't see exactly what is going on so I might have to make a video, although it would have to be speeded up somewhat! :-)

By the way, these shots were all taken one handed as I was having to hold up the mesh lid to get at the caterpillar. You can see what I'm talking about better in the final photo. 

It was a bit of a slow process.

Quite a lot of silk strands are made to form this cradle.

Photobombed!

The new cradle showing multiple strands - it is visible just behind the third true leg
(front pointy legs) and what you see to the right is old silk from a previous cradle.

Oh and one more just showing how this lot decided it would be fun to group up, and what
a nuisance it is for me with them on the mesh as I can't easily photograph anything
going on here, let alone video it! So few of them use the sticks I provide.

Raising Swallowtails - Part 10 - The Eclosion!

With 13 chrysalises I hoped I'd get to witness at least one eclosion, but after having missed the first two by maybe just a minute or two it was time to do something about it. I knew the third one was imminent as it was already showing signs of wing colouration through the chrysalis skin and luckily it was one of the few on a stick, so I could take it out of the box. The rest are irritatingly hanging off the mesh lid or on the sides of the plastic box.

So with thanks to my friend Marianne who told me to just set up a camera and leave the video running, but also set a timer to remind me every 15 mins or so to check on it, I duly set to work. Luckily my OH had a mini tripod that was perfect for my old Cybershot. Out came the blue tack to fix the stick in place - as I needed light for the video I stuck the top of the stick to the window frame. Then the background looked naff so my OH got some kitchen paper and we blue tacked that in place to make this makeshift studio!

My studio.

After running two batteries flat that afternoon/early evening I was pretty sure it would be eclosing around 8am the following day as that seems a popular time with these butterflies. So I set the video but also decided to sit in the kitchen waiting and watching.... when suddenly I noticed the chrysalis had just started to split. I grabbed my camera and took photos too (you'll notice my flash going off in the video but that can't be helped).

So here it is, it doesn't last long and you can view it full screen with reasonable quality, but there isn't a medium size option, unfortunately. (P.S. I have reloaded this with added music and taken out the original sound track of me stomping about the kitchen and the noise of my flash going off!)

Aaargh the darn thing climbed straight upwards and up the window frame! I had imagined it would dangle from the chrysalis for a while which is why I set the camera in a position that would show that. Well I'll know next time. :-)

Note the browny-red liquid that the butterfly excreted as it was eclosing. This is pupal fluid although last year's ones managed to do it outside of the chrysalis; this year's are obviously tidy beasts.

So here are the photos I took at the same time as the videos, and would you believe that just after the final shot shown here the batteries died in my Speedlite! But it didn't matter as I've plenty of photos from that stage onwards from the other butterflies.

Climbing up the window frame.

This was the only salvageable bit of the rest of the video which started with the eclosion - a few seconds where it sticks its proboscis out and has a good old wiggle. I had grabbed the camera, tripod and all, to try to film some more but managed to get most of it out of focus!

Here are a few photos from the first Swallowtail to eclose that I must have just missed by a minute or two, judging by how crumpled up its wings are. These start to smooth out very quickly after eclosion.

Freshly eclosed and climbing up the stick towards the chrysalis that featured in my video.

Hugging its sibling!

I left this one in the box for a while, usually I put them on a pot plant but it seemed
perfectly happy hanging off the chrysalises and getting its wings in working order!

Here's a not very good video of one of them flapping its wings to pump 'blood' (called hemolymph) into them and also exercising its proboscis a bit. 

My African Violet makes a handy place for them to hang from
until they are ready to go outside.

You get nicer photo ops with flowers in the background.

And here's one from last year when it was released. I already took dozens of photos of them last year when I set them free. My first two this year flew off straight away and the third sat on a flower for a while.

It's a really wonderful feeling releasing these beautiful creatures that you've raised yourself.

Well there you have it, over these 10 posts I think I have pretty much covered everything involved in the whole life cycle of these butterflies, but if there's an opportunity to video a pupation.... well I'll see how I go with the next batch!

The previous post showing photos of a pupation are here in Part 9, if you missed it.

Raising Swallowtails - Part 9

This is already turning out to be a good year for Swallowtails. I've seen a fair few already and more eggs have been laid and I'm coming across tiny caterpillars on both bronze fennel and the dill in my veg patch. I always grew dill specifically for the Swallowtails anyway. I've also found 5 final instar caterpillars on various fennel plants so great that some of them got that far out in the wild, as so many of the eggs and young caterpillars disappear, no doubt to predators. 

I now have another 15 babies indoors, now these I do not plan to keep all the way through to butterfly, but as soon as they are large enough to handle I shall release some of them outside and keep just a few indoors to raise again. The reason I collected so many is that I found many tiny caterpillars on the lower down, dying yellow fronds of the fennel and they were too small to transfer further up the plant. Also, there seems to be some strange disease of dill this year, some plants are healthy and others have some strange thing where the leaves turn red and then the plant flops. So I've been saving tiny caterpillars from these plants too.

Little caterpillar about Instar 3 on dill in my veg patch.

Saw this really tatty butterfly the other day - wondering whether it is the same tatty one I posted before, but now she's lost nearly all of her hind wings and some of the fore wings too which are practically see through. Yet she still laid an egg! 

Swallowtail (Papilio machaon).
She wasn't going to survive much longer by the looks of things.

I got to witness a moult all the way through the process this time. I only took one photo because it was late and you can see in it the darkened head capsule which looks like it has already dislodged. What was interesting to watch was the amount of wriggling, squeezing and pushing that went on for about half an hour before the moult. I didn't photograph it because it was about 11pm, and we were watching something on the TV, so I took the bowl into the living room with me plus magnifying glass and half watched telly and half watched my caterpillar!

Just before a moult into the final instar.

The main reason for this Part 9 is because I also witnessed a pupation. I'd seen and photographed one two years ago, but this time was a little different and needed a bit of human intervention.....

I noticed this was about to happen because it suddenly started to move and wiggle.

And then the skin popped open and the chrysalis started to appear.

But note the cradle/cremaster which is holding it up -
it's not where it is supposed to be!

Oops! Yes it fell out!

This is the kitchen paper lining the box and I was having kittens
wondering if it could still manage to pupate properly.

I needn't have worried as it didn't seem to have any problems.

Nearly got rid of that skin....

Just one more wriggle and squeeze.....

And finally free. Usually when hanging, they flick this skin off. I gave it a helping hand.

Now here I learned something new, having never (obviously) handled a newly formed chrysalis I had no idea they would be so soft and squidgy! I then had to try to get it back into its cradle! That was easier said than done but I (with help from my OH)  managed to get the cradle over several of those ridges, but because it had chosen to pupate on the plastic mesh lid of the box it was really hard and I had to keep checking I was putting it back the right side up! It's now dangling down a little too far as I couldn't get it into the correct position, and is a bit wobbly when I move the box, so I'm going to get some thread and tie it up so it's in a better position for eclosing.

And the reason I know it doesn't want to be dangling down...... because there will be a Final Chapter after all...... as I have finally witnessed an eclosion and know what happens when the butterfly emerges! 

You'll have to wait a bit because I've got some video footage that needs editing, not by me as I don't have suitable software, but with help from my dear OH who is used to editing videos. :-)

Raising Swallowtails - Part 8

So the previous post I got up to Stage 5 so this is Stage 6 onwards. I now know that Stage 6 is the last but one instar, no. 4. And by the way guess who has six more tiny caterpillars added to her flock? Well they keep coming in on fennel which I'm picking for my babies, or I'm finding them on the yellowing leaves at the bottom of the plants and I'm sure they are too small to walk all the way up to another fennel frond, that'd be like 100 miles for them!

Here I have a Stage 5 (right) and a Stage 6.

I was lucky enough to notice one of the caterpillars in the middle of a moult, so grabbed my camera!

Turning into Stage 6 (Instar 4).

Here you can clearly see the head capsule still on the head,
which is always very pale just after a moult.

Still wearing the head capsule.

Now the capsule is just attached by a bit of web and the moulted skin at the side.

From the outside of the bowl you can see that the caterpillar has attached itself to it
with fine webbing before having a moult.

Here it is a while later showing how it has lost the 'bird dropping' white marking now.

And a view of the rear end.

Stage 8 or rather Instar 5 which is the final stage before pupating. During this period the caterpillar grows enormously. Obviously by this time they are a lot easier to photograph and on June 2nd my three largest ones all moulted so kept me busy watching and shooting!

Stage 8 just moments after a moult - at this point the face is very pale but darkens up within
about an hour. You can see the head capsule with the familiar Swallowtail facial markings
in the right hand corner. You can see the ocelli (simple eyes) a lot clearer as well.

June 2nd - this is another one after a moult and the facial markings are just visible now.

A few minutes later and the colouring is even darker, and the head capsule is still next to it.

4th June and much bigger and showing their beautiful colours now.

6th June and the 4th caterpillar reaches Stage 8/Instar 5. Here it is eating its moulted skin.
You can see the difference in size between one which was at that stage four days previously!
Also note size of bigger caterpillar's frass (poo) compared to the smaller one's head capsule!

Photo shoot time.

Excuse me would you stop eating just for a moment as I'm trying to measure you!

One thing I've learned about caterpillars, they either eat and poo like crazy,
or do absolutely nothing. Sometimes they don't move for 2 days before a moult.

Finally, pupation draws near when they go on walkabout. Just before the pupation process the caterpillar does what I call 'watery frass', a liquid poo presumably purging themselves before the long period of metamorphosis. They then feel the need to wander off because they are looking for a place to pupate in. At this point I have to get them into the big box with a mesh lid. There are now three in there (I found the second one on my magnifying glass, just as I was picking it up to look at the first one!!), two of which are firmly attached to a stick with their silk cradle and will probably be chrysalises by this evening.

Up the wall is a lot less dangerous than across the floor, which I've seen before!

I think I saw their mummy out of the kitchen window yesterday whilst I was making strawberry jam and had to nip out to take a few pics. There's no way to tell if it is male or female and it was very tatty and at the end of its days, however there are a lot of fresh eggs suddenly on the bronze fennel! 

Very tatty Swallowtail (Papilio machaon) with a good amount of hindwing missing.

It was just clinging to the Valerian.

Though when I gingerly put a finger up to it, it flew away as it wasn't having any of that!

OK the rest of what happens is already documented in these posts so I don't need to keep taking photos.... or do I? :-)

Links to all the previous posts re. raising Swallowtails:

Part 1 - 2012 - introducing my caterpillars and learning a lot about them.
Part 2 - the start of the pupation process.
Part 3 - lots of chrysalises forming but I never actually witnessed one.
Part 4 - the one in which I finally managed to see and photograph a caterpillar turning into a chrysalis.
Part 5 - 2013 - the following spring and what happened to my overwintered chrysalises.
Part 6 - finding more caterpillars and getting through to the butterfly stage.
Part 7 - 2014 - from egg to caterpillar (the most recent post).

I have one more thing to witness .... an eclosion! If you read Part 6 you'll know how long I spent watching and how many frustrations I had last year.  But this time I do have my OH's new trail camera which is one of those infrared and movement detector thingies so I can put it in the box and set it to take photos at intervals, or at movement, or photo plus 10 second video etc etc. Well I can't, as I haven't a clue how it works, but he can. No idea of quality but anything is better than nothing!

By the way I should mention that 'cats' are incredibly fun and rewarding pets but possibly more time consuming than the feline variety!