I often see the Giant Swallowtail butterflies passing through my yard. This year I planted a native Wild Lime to get them to lay eggs here. It worked. Here is a decent sized, growing nicely, Giant Swallowtail cat. The bush actually had three on it, but one is gone.
Art
Hi Art,
That one looks almost ready to pupate! I'd be quite interested to see some pics of the chrysalis. I am raising 7 Giant Swallowtail cats right now on a small orange tree that I moved inside. I think mine are about 3rd instar. They can really chew up some leaves!!! I am going to have to build a screen box soon to let the newly emerged adults dry their wings in safety. Do you know if they pupate on the host tree, or do they find something else close by?
Here's a pic of one of my cats.
Mark
This is my first trip with these guys so I have no idea what will happen. My yard is large and full of cover. If I spot a chrysalis it will be purely by accident, I am sure. I have only seen a couple out of the many varieties in my yard, and they were all by accident. The largest of the two Giant Swallowtails left is about an inch and a half long. In my post about the Black Swallowtail in the same area, It was on parsley. It's now gone, I assume to chrysalis, but have not seen it yet.
Art
My 5 big cats all have molted to the 5th instar in the last 24 hours. They are really getting big! They look like thugs!
My little orange tree is in the dining room, near a window, and I really hope these guys don't crawl around looking a for a place to pupate.
Here's a pic of one the big ones.
Mark
Hey, nice shot Mark! Did you build that box yet?
John
They are ugly boogers, aren't they?! "Bird droppings" is how they are always described. They are definitely the ones I'm the least fond of when raising. LOL They will crawl away to pupate, so you might want to enclose them somehow.
I saw my first GST of the season in my yard yesterday! I ran to get the camera but it was gone. It will be back tho, and I need to get more rue for it! (since I don't have citrus) I discovered my one little rue plant was overtaken by zinnias so I transplanted it. It hates our heat anyways, but now it's really unhappy with me.
On the ugly boogers...yes they are, I don't know if it's my imagination or what, but I seem to see them looking at me as I crawl around the bush trying to get pictures of them. I don't see this behavior in other cats. Their eyes seem to follow me. Now that I think about that, I don't seem to remember other cats having eyes. I never paid much attention to the other cats around here to notice wether or not they have actually have eyes.
You could try planting parsley and your other annual larva attractors in shade, as I have done. It seems to be working. The parsley I planted in the sun is long gone, but the one's in the shade are thriving. I planted my fennel late, but it's also in mostly shade and it seems to be growing. I am not familar with fennel so I am not sure of how it growths. Some of the plants are about 7-8 inches out of the ground and hanging in there.
There is only one cat left on the wild lime bush, so two have already wandered off. As I remember, they were about 1 1/2 to 1 3/4 inches when they dissappeared.
Art
LOL...I don't think I've ever seen their eyes either. It's hard for me to even distinguish the "head" of the GST. I know which end it is, but it doesn't look like a head, just a blob! lol I'm going to have to get out my powerful magnifying eye glass and inspect some cat eyes now.
I could try the shade, but alas, I have none! My entire yard is in full sun. One place in the back has shade starting late in the afternoon. That's why I just continue with the fennel, it loves the sun. Mine this year is about 2 ft high and seeding. I had one last year that was 6 ft!! I cut it back finally to stop if from flowering and it just kept on making more flower heads. I finally had to cut it all down, but waited until the last batch of BST's had left to pupate.
Here is a picture. Can you see all the cats? I counted 11.
The GST cats I had (one still here) all have much larger heads than the rest of their body.
But...and this is a big BUT, after my previous post I went out to check the parsley and low and behold, one of the mystery butterflies was on it just posing for me. I was finally able to get a good shot of one of my mystery small butterflies. I will post the butterfly photo asking for help in identifying it.
The plant it's posing on is Cilantro, which is very close to parsley. The plant is on the South side of my native coffee plant and behind a grouping of Shepherd's Needles. This group of plants is about five feet West of a five foot high wall, so they are in the shade until mid afternoon.
Art
Hey y'all,
Sorry I couldn't post earlier--I've been working some long hours, and building my screen box in my time off!
When I woke up this morning, one of the big cats was wandering around on the edge of the container for the orange tree. I was going to wait until this weekend to build the screen box, but after seeing the cat crawling all over, I figured I better do it this morning. A couple of hours later, I found him on the kitchen floor, but I just put a leaf in front of him, and he crawled right on it. Then it was back on the tree for him.
I finished most of the screen box. I made it big enough for a larger orange tree than what is in it now. The box is 3 feet wide, 5 feet high, and 18 inches deep. I didn't have time to make a door, so I just stapled some screening material where the door will be when I get around to it. And I'll probably put some wheels on the bottom too, as the box turned out to be heavier than I thought. When I got home tonight, one of the cats was on the ceiling inside the box. The other 4 big ones were still on leaves on the orange tree. I think they are all going to pupate really soon. And konkreteblonde must be right, they probably crawl away to pupate. So Art, the two that disappeared from your lime tree are probably not too far away.
As for eyes, I think I remember reading somewhere that caterpillars have 3 small eyes on each side of their heads. The bigger GST cats look like they have eyes on the humps on their heads, but I believe the actual eyes are closer to front end. I'll try to get an extreme close-up shot soon.
I checked my fennel this morning, and there were 3 small cats on it! I had seen a black swallowtail fluttering around it last week, but I couldn't find any eggs. Apparently they were there, and I just couldn't see them. The little cats have a cream colored "saddle" right in the middle of their bodies, so I'm not certain they are BSTs. I think I'll bring this plant inside too, cause its pretty small, and if I was to get 11 cats on it like konkreteblond had on hers, they would eat the whole plant in a couple of days! LOL
I'll post some more pics soon.
Mark
Hello everyone,
It took a little longer than I thought, but I finally have a Giant Swallowtail chrysalis!
A couple of my big cats have really been looking sick for a couple of days, and I still am not sure if they will make it. Then, when my first big cat began to pupate, all it did was to form a sort of shriveled up J-shape. I thought it hadn't been able to successfully pupate. So, I began to think that maybe my little orange tree had been sprayed with chemicals at the nursery (I'm still not sure if it has or not). The first cat to pupate just stayed in the J-shape for about 24 hours. I was working on installing the door to my cage/screen box when I noticed that it moved. I thought that was a good sign, but still didn't think it would form a normal chrysalis. But to my surprise, the next time I passed the cage a few hours later, it was a normal chrysalis!
Here is a pic of the chrysalis.
Mark
Here's what they look like in the J-shape.
Here's a pic of one of the sick cats. It is just slumped over, like it's dead. But if I touch the leave, it will wake up and move a little. I still do not think this normal. None of the cats were doing anything like this until they started eating the older leaves on the tree--the ones I think may have been sprayed with insecticide. They were eating "new growth" leaves until they reached the 5th instar. I have 2 cats that look like this.
Has anyone seen anything like this?
Mark
On the subject of catepillar eyes, I got out my tripod, and was able to get some extreme closeups. I had remembered correctly, they have 6 tiny eyes, 3 on each side of the head. The 5th instar Giant Swallowtails have 2 dark spots on either side of the "hump". These are "false eyes" if you will.
Here's a pic of the false eyes. This one isn't too close up, and doesn't have good depth of field, cause I took it with the aperture wide open so I wouldn't have to use flash.
The actual head is below the white band on the front tip of the cat.
Here is an extreme close up of the head. I drew in 2 little arrows that point to the eyes. The eyes on the right side are easier to see than those on the left.
In case anyone was wondering, the front of the lens is about 2 inches from the cat. The camera is a 2 year old Nikon Coolpix 4500. It can take some good close-ups, but has lots of trouble auto-focusing in low light. This can be really frustrating.
Mark
Thanks Mark! I knew it's actual "face" was further down that it looked like it would be. That's what I meant by not being able to find it's head. I've never gotten that close to any of my cats when they are in their last instars. I will get out my jeweler magnifying glass and look close for eyes next time.
Excellent shots.
Boy, great pictures!
I saw my last cat on on Friday, and it was in that J shape. I haven't gotten out there and crawled around to see chrysalis due to the heavy rains we have had for the last week. It may be a day or so before I can do this but I am looking forward to (hopefully) finding one.
On the eyes, your explanation was perfect. So even though the eyes were false the cat was still able to see me and was following me around with it's real eyes.
Art
