Fred is a black Swallowtailed Caterpillar. I identified him with help from my favorite site: whatsthatbug.com. Yeah!
Hunter Jacques found him. Well actually, Jacques found his trail and was madly sniffing at the wall Fred was crawling up. I found Fred and rescued him from an awful fate. I put him in a little wooden spice bowl for a while and pondered what to do with him. Then I decided to use the Internet! (marvelous invention). Fred was on his bowl in front of me and must have walked 12 miles on the rim, round and round.
I found a new wonderful website: www.butterflyschool.org. They give great advice. Especially for the big one - what do I feed this little guy? Feed him the plant you found him on. Hmmm, I know he doesn't eat house. So I kept poking around and they give advice about which plants to look on if you want a certain kind of butterfly. That's where I found that Fred likes parsley, dill, and fennel. I have two parsley plants in my window boxes, that's what he must have been attracted to.
So I fixed up a room just for Fred: (you can see him just above the bowl on the right)
He was ravenous! As soon as I put the bowl in the jar, he climbed a stalk and began chomping on the leaves. Fantastic! So with any luck, Fred will turn into this:
Now, it is also always possible, that Fred is really a Fredericka, but I won't know until after he's transformed. In that case the blue highlights on the tail will be a bit duller.
1 comment:
How exciting! I remember catching catarpillars as a child. As I recall they did not make it past the catarpillar phase. I think we could have used the internet back then to help us with proper care and feeding. :)
The Three Amigos will love to watch Fred grow! Keep us posted.
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