CountryNaturals.com > Butterflies
Pipevine Swallowtail Butterfly
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Lots of hungry mouths to feed! These little guys can finish off a pipevine leaf in just a few minutes. Keeping enough host plants for all the caterpillars is the biggest challenge in raising butterflies. Pipevine Swallowtails will only eat pipevine. The plant looks like a large, sturdy Morning Glory (heart-shaped leaves). It likes to climb trees and does not grow well from cuttings, but transplates okay. |
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When the caterpillar has reached its optimum size, it will fasten itself to a beam or branch, and wait. The chrysallis forms from the inside (not like a cocoon, which is spun around the outside). Eventually, the caterpillar skin falls away, leaving the firm chrysallis to hang until conditions are right (a couple of weeks during the summer--several months over the winter). Then the new butterfly will emerge. It only takes a few seconds from start to finish, for the butterfly to emerge, but then it must hang free for up to a half hour, to let its wings dry and firm up, so it can fly. |
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These photos were all taken in our daughter Katie's yard in Cottonwood, California. She transplanted pipevine from hazardous areas to safer places in her yard. The caterpillars were rescued from a plant with only 2 leaves and relocated to larger, heallthier "all you can eat" pipevine buffet. Her work pays off. During the summer, Katie's flowering trees hold hundreds of beutiful, black, Pipevine Swallowtails. |
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