Life Cycle of A Black Swallowtail Butterfly

I have an amazing backyard with an amazing garden which I love. I spend lots of time back there planting, pruning and perfecting. So when I noticed a horde of caterpillars decimating my dill and fennel plants I had to take action. A friend who was over pointed out that these fat little green goobers were black swallowtail butterflies. So I decided to keep them. I put together a fern leaf dill filled terrarium and transported them with the intention of building a bigger enclosure for them after I returned from being away over the weekend. However, when I got back they had already sealed themselves into their Chrysalis. I decided to leave them as is and waited for the transformation to finish. When I walked out to check on them this morning two fully formed beautiful black swallowtails had emerged and were waiting for release. Needless to say I was thrilled my little science experiment came to fruition.




Chrysalis Shell after the first butterfly emerged

Three of the Chrysalis’s fell to the bottom so I used some chopsticks to prop them back up




This poor lady’s ( i think it’s a female) wings didn’t develop properly. I did some research and there’s no way she’d survive outside. Luckily I have a variety of terrariums perfect for butterflies throughout my apartment. I added some banana and sugar water for food and branches for her to perch.