I was digging around in the backyard the other day and I came across this beatiful big green catterpiller. He's so awesome.
When I was in the bush I noticed some predatory ants in the region so I felt it was prudent to bring my homie inside and hopefully allow him to grow into a butterfly state in safety.
I did a small bit of looking through some nature books I had lying about the house and determined that he was a Black Swallowtail Butterfly Larvae.
I'd never experienced the lesson about growing a larvae so I did my best and bought him a little tank to live in and I brought in some of the fennel he was living in. He seemed to like to eat it.
He seemed to like living in the tank. He crawled around and ate and pooped and ate and pooped and every once and again he'd stick his head out and look at me. It was weird. He didn't seem to scared of me but on the other hand I never did anything bad to him and I fed him so IDK, maybe he was right not to be scared.
When his antenna pop up like that right there that means he's about to shoot out a bad smell like a skunk does for defense. It had a smell similar to that of a fart. A little fart but nonetheless I could smell it.
He spent a lot of time up on the top of the tank. He liked to be upside down when he wasn't eating up the fennel. I had to change his fennel and clean his tank out every day or so because he was munching the leaves like crazy and he was pooping a lot too.
His poops were these super small round ball. I eventually started putting a small piece of paper towel at the bottom to make for easy clean-up. That' s a pro tip.
After a week or thereabouts in the tank he turned into a chrysalis. It was kind of wild. I noticed that he was spending all his time at the top and wasn't eating anymore so I figured that either he was going to transform soon or he was sick.
I was actually concerned that he was sick at one point. He wasn't moving at all and hadn't eaten for days.
Then one day he covered himself in all that stuff and became a cocoon. It was kooky. I looked at him and he was chilling at the top and then I came back an hour or so later and he was all chrysalis. I wonder how it happened.
He stayed in that state for a few weeks with no indication of what was happening in there. Basically at this point I kept an eye on his progress and squirted him with water everyday to keep him from drying out and then BAM! He turned into this.. It was amazing.
My wife went into the restroom where we kept him by the window and she was greeted by this beautiful boy looking back at her. It was hard to say when he popped out but it did seem like it happened in the last hour or so.
I had read that it's best to get them out into the world as soon as possible because they have a short life span and it's important for them to mate before it's too late!
Look at him in all his glory. He's beautiful. Perfect. This is him when he first emerged from the tank. He was apprehensive and sat on my wife's finger for the longest time before deciding to go back inside the aquarium for a bit of a rest.
I read earlier that it can sometimes take hours before the blood flows to their wings enough to enable flight. I think that was the situation at first. That or he just wasn't ready to leave home yet on an emotional level. Either way I was happy to get to spend some more time with him.
He's beautiful and I love him
There he is on her finger. It was kind of magical to get so close to a butterfly like that. The texture of his wings was a bit hairy and his body was totally fluffy. Eventually his wings got to working right and he headed off into the world in search of love.
I felt lucky to get the chance to be a part of his life and I wish him all the best out there in the world. I hope he finds someone to love, I hope he's safe and that he lives a long peaceful life.
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