Raising Swallowtails - Part 3

On Saturday I left you with a bit of a cliffhanger as they say in TV soap series talk. OK, this wasn't a life or death situation (although it could have been and did involve several heart stopping moments for me). What happened is that I came in from the garden in the afternoon with some dill to feed to my caterpillars, namely at this stage Little Guy and Teeny Guy.

I immediately noticed that Little Guy's box had that all too familiar watery pooey frass which meant it was time for him to go into the big box and start the fairly lengthy process of turning into a chrysalis. Without having read up about this I am guessing this is some kind of purging of waste out of their bodies as they do not eat any more before becoming a chrysalis.

Only - Little Guy wasn't there. At first I wasn't too worried, expecting him to be somewhere on the windowsill, but after I'd ended up moving everything off it and he was nowhere to be seen I was having kittens. Looked down at my feet to make sure I hadn't trodden on him, nope - oh god the cat's in the kitchen, has he eaten it? All these heart stopping moments whilst I scanned the walls, checked the tea towels that were on hooks just below the windowsill, started looking further afield and suddenly, thankfully, I spotted him!

Little Guy makes a bid for freedom

The little tinker, he was halfway across the kitchen floor! Luckily at this point my OH came in so I was able to ask him to cut me a stick to size to put in the big box for him. I picked up Little Guy who promptly decided to go walkabout up my arm.

"What's the time, Mr Wolf Caterpillar?"

"Three hairs past a freckle"

(That may only make sense to British people who were kids at about the same time as me).

Right matey, I think my T-shirt sleeve is far enough!

So off he went into the big box whereupon he explored just like the others did for a while until the next morning when he was nicely settled on a stick. Oh, but not the 3rd stick we'd put in there for him, but right up the bum of one of the others!

This is me lifting the stick up so I can take a photo. He's only about an inch off ground level!
This was at 7.20am Sunday 16th.

A little while later he started to wriggle his front end around and was obviously forming that silk that holds his front end up to the stick. It was really hard to photograph as I didn't want to move the stick to disturb him. (By the way I have since bought a new clearer plastic storage box which I will transfer them all into as this one is cloudy, and has scratches on the sides).

Little Guy wiggles about making silk strands to hold him up.

Not very easy to see but he was wiggling from side to side.
You can just see the silk thread holding up the green chrysalis.

Monday afternoon - he'd been in this final position since sometime on Sunday afternoon
or evening (which I didn't record).

Really cute!

I then spent the entire day Monday watching him every 2-3 minutes, apart from a worrying couple of hours in the morning when we had to go shopping. When I came upstairs to use my computer, the box came with me. When I had to go out and do my mucky ducky chores, my OH was under strict instructions to watch and yell out the window if anything happened. In the evening still nothing had happened so he spent the evening on the coffee table whilst we watched some TV. It was actually really quite exhausting watching him so much but I was determined to see the final moult through to the chrysalis emerging.

But bedtime came and there was no way I could stay awake and quite frankly, this IS only a caterpillar so I am not going to lose my beauty sleep over it.....

Of course you know what I'm going to say now. Yup, when I got up he looked like this:

A different colour!!!

I've no idea why he is a different colour from the other two who are bright green. Is it different sexes? There is so much more detail on him - he's really quite fascinating looking.

Am I seeing things or can I see wing markings there already?

I don't even know if the head end of a caterpillar becomes the head end of the butterfly! I really don't actually want to look this up because I'm really loving discovering all these new and unexpected things for myself! When it's all over I'll read up and try to find out more about my questions I'm asking myself.

Finally here's the moulted bit.

Couldn't get it sharp enough but it is tiny and you can see the head end on the right
and the scrunched up body bits on the left.

In the meantime, Teeny Guy continues to grow so it won't be long before it's his turn.

I also picked up a tiny green caterpillar in the dill whilst I was picking some food for my Swallowtails. This is the second little green one I've come across so I decided to bring it in to find out what it may be. I googled like crazy to find out what else dill may be the hostplant of but I could find nothing - and this could be a moth for all I know. But I won't post it here because this is the story of my Swallowtails. I'll let you know in due course in another posting.

Part 4 will follow at some point when hopefully I get to see a butterfly emerging but I don't hold out much hope of seeing Teeny Guy moult into a chrysalis - I've had one do it during the afternoon, one about 11pm and this guy during the night, so it's obviously quite random!

Raising Swallowtails - Part 2

And so on 9th Sept New Guy came to join us. At first I put him in a separate container the same size as Big Guy, but after a few days it became apparent that they were getting a bit of the old wanderlust, escaping out of their homes and one even went for a walk across the windowsill. It was time to sort out new accomodation for them.

Take note also the pooey mess in the corner of this container. Previously they had only done nice round dryish looking frass and this was the first time I'd seen this. Obviously later on I learned that this was something significant but I didn't know what it meant at the time.

Big Guy with wanderlust - 11th Sept

So out came the big plastic container which had previously been used for the sick baby hedgehog, complete with plastic mesh top which we'd used to keep the flies off the hedgehog (it had been washed!). New sticks were sorted, long enough for them to hang off when they were ready to turn into chrysalises.

At this point Little Guy was still in his original container. Big Guy and New Guy, both the same size, enjoyed a day running about their new box exploring both the sides and the top all day long.

Getting to know their new home

Exploring up the sides

Obviously we'd put the mesh on top, well clipped down!

During that day they never ate a thing or did any frass. (Do they 'do' frass, like they 'do' poo? This scientific jargon is beyond me. Perhaps they make frass? Excrete, eject, expel? Look in common language, they didn't poo!).

By the evening they appeared to have settled down and each adopted a stick of their own and just seemed to sit on the underside of it. Then when I got up on the 12th September look what I found.

Isn't nature wonderful? All settled into their own little hammocks being held up by silk. I have to assume that the watery frass and no eating after that was all a part of the process of turning into a chrysalis.

Big Guy and New Guy both looked like this

In the meantime, Little Guy was rapidly growing.

Little Guy 12th Sept

Little Guy gets measured 13th Sept

And the reason the tape measure was out? Well I have to admit that morning I came across Teeny Guy, who I just couldn't resist bringing in to join my happy flock.....

Teeny Guy joins us 13th Sept

By this time Little Guy was in a bigger container and Teeny Guy went into the smaller glass jar that was now empty. It was becoming a bit of a production line! My kitchen windowsill was rapidly disappearing. I also have a hoverfly pupa in the jam jar at the front below - it's that tiny blob on a stalk.

Teeny guy is being measured in this photo

All settled in, I then spent about 3 hours in the garden that afternoon only to come inside and find this!!

5.16pm 13th September. Suddenly one of my Guys has turned into a chrysalis!

I mean how did this happen all of a sudden? In my naivety and ignorance I had kept looking at these caterpillars looking for all the world like a sleepy caterpillar having a nap in a hammock, wondering when I'd start to see some sort of change into a chrysalis. Nobody told me it was because there would be a final moult and suddenly that caterpillar shape would change into the chrysalis above! And I missed it!!! I figured this out in about 5 seconds because I noticed this:

Discarded skin after final moult

I am so annoyed at missing the process as it would have been so amazing to witness. I've yet to see any moult let alone one into a chrysalis and I'm still wondering quite how they got out of their skin which was attached to the silk holding them up, yet still have that same silk there around the chrysalis. 

So you can be sure as I knew the other one was around the same stage of development and I guessed it would be happening soon, that I watched it like a hawk every few minutes for the next couple of hours, then checked every half an hour after that! Nothing. I thought maybe as it was late evening by then it would happen in the morning. Until we watched something on the telly for an hour then discovered the other one had transformed into a chrysalis during this time, and we'd missed that too!!! Waaaaaaah!!

Well I did get to see something. I just missed seeing Teeny Guy having a moult - I knew it was imminent as he'd spent all his first day neither eating or pooing (frassing?).

Teeny Guy just after a moult, 12.14pm 14th Sept. Note his very pale head and
the head capsule behind the flower on the right.

I knew he'd be eating the moult within the next hour so I brought him upstairs to sit on my desk whilst I was on my computer. I noticed after a while that his head darkened up to normal colouring but he stayed stuck to the side of the glass jar without moving much during this time.

Then suddenly he turned round and started to have a munch, and with a bit of jiggling around of the glass jar he was in I was able to take some photos, but couldn't quite get the right angle and obviously wasn't going to move him!

Teeny Guy munching his discarded skin

Ditto

And so ends Part 2. I'm hoping Part 3 will be either me witnessing Little Guy turn into a chrysalis, or if I miss that it'll be a butterfly eclosing. If I miss that I will be furious, but at least I've got 4 chances.... but I'm having visions of me going to the supermarket and the dentist next week with boxes of caterpillars/chrysalises and a camera. :-)

To be continued.......

(Actually something rather funny happened this afternoon since I finished this final draft, so that will be Part 3, as this one is long enough) :-)

Raising Swallowtails - Part 1

I have been following with interest some friends on Google + who have been raising Monarchs and Swallowtails, some from egg stage, all the way through to butterfly emerging. It seems so exciting that I had originally thought this would be a fun project to try next year.

Old World Swallowtail (Papilio machaon) butterflies are one of our northern European beauties, not that common although I do usually see a fair amount in the garden during the spring and summer. I see even more of their unmistakeable caterpillars on my dill, which self seeds about the place and I allow it to do so because not only is it attractive in flower but because it is one of the host plants of the butterfly larvae (along with fennel and carrot). Weeks ago I found 4 tiny Swallowtail caterpillars but just a few days later they were no longer there. So when I came across two more on the dill in the veg patch, I felt the need to step in and give them a helping hand.

Suddenly next year's project became this year's as a bucket with dill and two caterpillars was brought indoors. I then had to hurriedly do a little research into caterpillar housing, and improvise!

I think the best way to document their journey so far is to show each caterpillar separately, as they are each at a different stage of development. This all started on 1st September.

Here is 'Little Guy' for want of a better name for him. This is taken through the glass of the preserving jar that I'd put him in! I lined it with kitchen towel and put some muslin fabric over the top to keep things out (what I'm not entirely sure) and allowing air in. At this point he (I don't know that he's a he of course) was very tiny.

Little Guy 1st Sept

To start with neither caterpillar seemed to do much; for the first few days they seemed to sit around not eating or pooing much and I thought it had all gone horribly wrong and that they were going to die, and that the kitchen windowsill (out of sunlight) was not a suitable environment. I realise now after Big Guy had a moult that Little Guy had also done so during this time, and they seem to go rather quiet and not eat a lot in the time leading up to this. They also eat their own skin after shedding it so that accounts for them not needing to eat so much of the dill that I give them fresh twice a day. They seem to eat their skin very quickly and I haven't yet witnessed this, so they could easily be moulting without me noticing - even though I am looking in on them often, but I can't help the hours that I may be outside during the afternoon or at night.

This is the next stage, known as an instar, of Little Guy's development, on 4th September. He has clearly changed colouring and was growing, little by little.

Little Guy 4th Sept

Little Guy 5th Sept

Little Guy 6th Sept

Little Guy 8th Sept - he's actually still quite small

On the 9th it started to get interesting! I discovered him just after he'd moulted. What I had thought was a bit of frass turned out to be the head capsule! I didn't realise until I had zoomed in on the photos that I took. Within half an hour Little Guy had eaten his skin (damn, missed it!) but had left the head capsule, which warranted closer examination.

Little Guy moult and head capsule - 9th Sept

The head capsule against a millimeter measure

Closer up, showing the hairy bits!

So this is where I'll stop documenting Little Guy and turn my attention to Big Guy now and show his stages through this same time span. Big Guy was clearly quite visible out in the veg patch on the dill flower, and was at about the same stage that Little Guy is now.

Big Guy out in the garden 1st Sept

Big Guy was put into a slightly larger container - in the absence of anything more suitable at the time he went into a plastic barquette/punnet that peaches and nectarines are bought in, again with a muslin sheet put over the top.

This was the first moult that we witnessed by Big Guy on the 4th. At this point I didn't know what happened next so some hours later was surprised to see that the moulted skin had disappeared. Obviously I didn't know at that point about the head casing either. You can see in the following two photos that the head casing (top right of the moult) is still attached to the rest of the skin.

Big Guy moult 4th Sept

Here, now that I know what I am looking at, is the head capsule
still attached to the rest of the skin.

By now Big Guy was starting to look like the caterpillars that I'm used to seeing on the dill during the summer months here. This is their grown up colours and markings. (I do apologise for my lack of scientific terminology but it's all new to me and I've only learnt a few words so far, like frass, instar and eclose!)

Big Guy 5th Sept against the windowsill

Big Guy being measured on 8th Sept

I did wonder why he seemed in a bit of an odd position until I flipped him over by mistake and saw he was clutching a bit of dill stalk - he looks so cute like this and didn't seem bothered lying there whilst I took photos! It's great to see their truelegs up their top end (the right) and prolegs on the rest of the body. (OK, I admit, I just looked that up. It does sound more professional than 'feet' and 'sticky pads', which is what I originally wrote!)

Big Guy clutching his dill stalk

There ends Big Guy's journey for the moment, because at this stage enter onto the scene New Guy, who I found out in the veg patch! I couldn't help myself but bring him in as well......

New Guy 9th Sept - exactly the same size as Big Guy

Now I will make a start on Part 2 and let you know progress in due course, as already there have been more changes. I realise now how important it is to document this all as although day by day not a lot seems to happen, over the course of a week or so, it actually does, so I need to keep on top of what is going on or I'll be totally lost. 

To be continued!