Hatching Black Swallowtail Butterflies

It is not too late to find caterpillars and watch them pupate and eventually hatch into butterflies. I learned of Shelly Rubinstein’s project when she emailed me recently. She agreed to let me share the photos she had posted on her Facebook page.

This male Black Swallowtail butterfly may still be drying his wings. Otherwise he would have flown away.

Black Swallowtail emerges from a pupa in one of Shelly’s butterfly houses.

The caterpillar has now become a pupa.

This caterpillar escaped but didn’t go far before starting to make its pupa. He has anchored his tail to the bottom of a lawn table and spun a thread like sling to support his body in the pupae. His skin will shed as the pupae emerges from inside the skin.

A laundry basket makes an excellent butterfly house. It prevents the larvae from escaping and keeps birds and wasps from eating the caterpillars.

These hungry caterpillars are nearly ready to become pupae.

Caterpillars found this late in the summer will turn into pupae if fed well, but the pupae may not hatch until next spring or summer. Do not overly protect them from the change of seasons or it may take longer for them to hatch. I kept one in a library window sill that hatched almost a full year after it had become a pupa. I thought it had died, but kept it anyway as an example of a pupa when one day it surprised me and hatched.

Click here for a previous post with more how to information.

Click here for  a link to a school project I did with Black Swallowtail Butterflies.