How to Raise Swallowtail Butterfly Caterpillars
Raising a caterpillar with your kids is a great learning experience and swallowtails are one of the most beautiful butterflies in North America. Follow these simple instructions to attract and raise your own caterpillar to release in your garden. Does this Spark an idea?
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Things You'll Need
- Aquarium with screen lid
- Sticks
- Plants such as dill, fennel, Carrot, Parsley, or Rue
- Nectar Plants for your garden
Instructions
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The first step to raising butterflies is to attract them to your garden. The adult butterflies like to feed on nectar plants such as milkweed, purple coneflower, bee balm, butterfly weed, butterfly plant, zinnias, and lantana to name a few. Check with your local gardening center for plants for your area. If you would like to learn how to setup your garden for Black Swallowtails check out my ehow article on How to Attract Black Swallowtail Butterflies in the links below.
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The next step is to have the host plants available for the butterflies to lay its eggs on. For the Swallowtail butterfly the host plants are dill, fennel, carrots, parsley, or Rue. The female butterfly will lay a small white/yellow egg on the host plant.
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You can collect the eggs if you find them or you can wait until the caterpillars hatch and collect it at that point. The young caterpillars will be less than a half and inch and are black, white and orange with spikes.
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The caterpillars need a lot of fresh food so it is best if you can plant some of the host plants in your aquarium. Use some organic potting soil and place the dill or fennel in your aquarium. If you do not want to plant them than make sure you provide lots of fresh food. If it is wilted the caterpillars will not eat it.
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When the caterpillar has gotten large, around 3-4 inches, it will begin looking for a place to form its chrysalis. It is best to provide some sticks in the aquarium for it at this point. The caterpillars will select a spot and remain still for a time before forming its chrysalis.
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Once it has attached itself to the stick it will remain in that position for 24 hours or so before it sheds its skin and forms the Chrysalis. The chrysalis will be either brown or green in color depending on what its attached too.
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The butterfly will emerge from the chrysalis in around 9-11 days. Once the butterfly has emerged its wings will be wrinkled and it needs to hang upside down for a couple of hours. The wings are really delicate during this time so it is best not to touch the butterfly at this time.
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Now it is time to release your butterfly back into your yard. You can keep the butterfly in the aquarium until it starts flapping its wings. Usually by around 2-4 hours it will need to be released.
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Take the whole aquarium outside and remove the lid. At this time you can try to get the butterfly to walk onto your hand so that your children can hold the butterfly before it flies away. If you let it go by a nectar source in your yard then it may hang around for a while.
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Tips & Warnings
If you do not plant your host plants than I like using a paper towel in the bottom of the aquarium because it makes cleaning easier.
If you do not want to be collecting food leave the caterpillars on the host plant until they are 3-4 inches and then remove them to the aquarium so it can form its chrysalis.
Do not touch the wings of the butterfly. They are extremely fragile and can be damaged easily.
Supervise your kids around the caterpillars and chrysalis they can also be damaged if squeezed or dropped.
