Raising Butterflies

This post will confront my insanity, and provide some insight into raising monarchs and swallowtails. I hope. Did you all get my thesis statement? I hate thesis statements, and refuse to let my students use them, by the way.

I did not expect a banner year for monarchs (around 80 so far, with peak migration Sept 8-20 in Nebraska)--they are a threatened species in my mind (read my article on them here.) But I also have been bringing in monarch eggs religiously. Monarch eggs are often on the underside of milkweed leaves, though I have seen them on top and within blooming milkweed flowers, as well as on seed pods. They are little sesame seed-sized white / cream things that look like bullets. I've found that raising monarchs from eggs is easy, whereas for black swallowtails it's best to let them get going a bit outside through the first 2-3 instars (swallowtail eggs--on fennel and parsely most often--are yellowish balls of similar size to monarchs).

So a few weeks ago I bought a used 10g aquarium and did this to it:

You can see there are a FEW monarchs and swallowtails in there (30-40). Bottom is lined with paper towel. Picked up a fitted screen for the top at a pet store that I can easily lift off.  Gathered twigs from beneath my elm. Went CrAzY.

A monarch just went, you can see his twisting, long chrysalis in the middle above. Monarchs tend to cluster near one another as they form their chrysalis--if your friend pupated off a cliff, would you?

This weekend 11 monarchs got their chrysalis on, and today 4 did within 15 minutes of one another, and 3 more will soon go. (Also notice the brown swallowtail chryslides on the top right.) It's easy to tell when monarchs are about to shed their skin (not so easy with the slower swallowtails), look at this guy:

See his shriveled skin and antennae? The line on his side? (or her) I love seeing that skin slide up and off:

This monarch (below) attached to the side, and has a flat dent. Rumor has it things will work out. We will see:

And here's a closeup of a swallowtail. They secure their bums, too, like the monarchs, but also make a sling for their upper body to recline in:

And here is my assembly line:

Container 1 has monarch eggs on leaves. Container 2 very very tiny monarch cats (they will eat the eggs if you don't move them out). Container 3 and 4 are 2nd to 3rd instar cats. Container 5 holds small swallowtails. And then the 2g aquarium with a few more monarchs about to go.

It's overwhelming, and I've bitten off more than I can chew (the cats eat so much food I head outside 3-4 times day, and the poop, my god the poop cleaned out every day or two!). But, I have to do something. I feel like I'm doing something more proactive than recycling or gardening.

Tachnid flies lay eggs in monarch larvae with a vengeance, and often the monarch "J"s up early, dies, and hangs limp as the tachnid fly larvae slides out on a slime thread. Swallowtails get carted off by wasps and used as incubation chambers. Maybe I just see a lot of my life in this whole process (take that any way you want).

Swallowtail Porn

Just go with the titles, ok? Some sharp pics from my Canon Rebel XTi. And this swallowtail was the FIRST insect I've seen on the butterfly bushes this year, and then another swallowtail came seconds later--all while two monarchs were nearby on the milkweed. Everyone was laying eggs between nectar breaks. Egg. Drink. Egg. Drink. Egg. Drink. It was about breakfast time I suppose. (Yes, I'm slowly going insane this summer with no book project to work on. Bummer. Last summer I wrote 150 pages and read dozens of books, so I get this one off.)

As always, I suggest clicking on the images to expand.

Success!! We Have Black Swallowtails!

Well, if the monarchs won't turn out (as if I were baking cookies!), the swallowtails will. The wife and I came home last night after dinner to see a black swallowtail paw-ing at the roof of his enclosure. The other swallowtail chrysalis outside was already vacated--it hadn't been in the morning. What timing. Reminds me of a few weeks ago when two monarch cats were within a foot of each other, venturing out on to the lawn.

So after some sub par pics--see below--we released the swallowtail (a female I think) into the great unkown. And what did the little ingrate do? Just took off to the empty lot next door and beyond. It bypassed all my lovely butterfly bushes and coneflowers and asters and....

After the butterfly pics, why not engorge yourself with my asiatic lilies, blooming late because I planted the bulbs around July 4th.

And I just picked up some new books: Planting Noah's Garden: Further Adventures in Backyard Ecology by Sara Stein, and Planting the Natural Garden by Piet Oudulf, so potentially more cerebral posts (which I know I've been lacking) may be coming in a few weeks--or I might just keep posting "fluff" posts about fragile flying insects while I bang out my dissertation and grade poems / essays. Oh, what to do.

Various Chrysalises of Black Swallowtail

I've got two swallowtail chrysalises now: one is green, and outside on a gold leaf tansy (notice its skin piled on a nearby leaf); and the other is brown, inside on a stick in an old aquarium (where a monarch larva waits its turn). But I've also got a pic of the outside monarch chrysalis that's hanging from the underside of a morning glory leaf. Many more monarchs are coming down the pipeline on various milkweeds. Isn't it all beautiful? And, time lapse videos aside, how DO they do it? And why can't I? As always, click on the pics to get larger ones. The last image is a view in my garden that to me screamed "fall." I screamed back with a barbaric yawp "like hell!"

Monarch Poop, Free Swallowtail Larva, and Other Garden Insect Photos

As five large monarch larvae get close to pupating, they've produced copious amounts of feces.













And, how does one get free black swallowtail larvae (below)? Why, one meanders through a local nursery and finds one last bronze fennel, on sale, with a single caterpillar on it. He (or she, or it) then picks off other larvae from nearby parsley and puts them on the fennel until he (or she, or it) has four caterpillars. This, in conjunction with a $6 Queen of the Prairie and Boltonia--plus two shirts for under $10 at Kohls--makes it a good day, indeed, while the wife is away in Vegas dancing with strippers and taking out a fifth mortgage to play keno.



































The below garden shots I took while, for a whole hour last night, looking for a chrysallis or ten in my 2500 square feet of gardens and found none. One photo is the molted skin of a locust / grasshopper. Freaky cool, like the zit on my back I can't reach. (You may wonder if I share such facts as the above while teaching--I respond by asking if you know of any better way to keep students awake in the middle of a writing / lit lecture.)