When Ugly Becomes Beautiful

Cindy was talking to a friend recently who asked her about an ugly pest that was devouring the leaves on her citrus trees.  When the friend described the pest as "looking like a piece of bird poop", Cindy guessed that the "pest" was actually the larval stage of the Giant Swallowtail butterfly.  Our friend was horrified to hear this because she had been carefully picking the ugly things off her trees and feeding them to her chickens.

Fortunately, the Giant Swallowtail is not an endangered species and has become fairly prevalent in Southern California, where the larvae happily feed on the leaves of citrus trees; the world can always use more butterflies.  Although the caterpillars will chew up some of the leaves, they usually aren't numerous enough to damage the tree.

The Ugly Caterpillar

My friend Kris shot a great picture of a Giant Swallowtail a couple of years ago, and shortly after that  Cindy and I found one of the larva on one of our small citrus trees.  See http://plantagarden-itllgrowonyou.blogspot.com/2013/11/giant-swallowtail-butterfly.html.

Becomes the Beautiful Butterfly

Just another lesson in not judging the worth of something based on its initial appearance.

Herding Caterpillars

Many Monarchs

We've been complaining all summer about not seeing any Monarch caterpillars, but in the last couple of weeks we've seen a number of Monarchs, but also the Giant Swallowtail caterpillar on the citrus and an Anise Swallowtail caterpillar on the parsley.

The Monarchs are all over the Asclepia plant that came up as a volunteer in the corner of the big raised bed in the back yard, but they don't seem to be able to find a good place to form their chrysalises.

The first one evidently crawled along the top of the panels until it came to the farthest corner of the bed, then went out on the twist tie that keeps the panels together to form its chrysalis.

Really?

We put a couple of stakes across the top of the panels to give the others a little more solid place to attach, but did they do that?  Nooooooo, not one of them has used it.

A Little Help?  

The second one crawled completely out of the bed and ended up attaching to the bottom of one of the patio posts.

So when we saw the third one busily crawling along the pathway in the general direction of the patio and tried to climb up the side of the water tank, we decided to try to encourage it to find a better place to attach.

No, Not There!

We finally got it on one of the blueberry bushes, where it curled into its "J" shape and formed its chrysalis.

Finally Found A Place

So we'll see if any of them hatch out successfully.

Giant Swallowtail Butterfly

Giant Swallowtail 

My friend Kris found a butterfly lying in middle of the street one morning, apparently dead.  It was a cool morning and some butterflies will go dormant if the temperature is too low, so she picked it up and placed it in the sun, where it eventually revived, tested its wings and flew off.

She sent me a picture of it and asked if I knew what kind of butterfly it was. Thanks to our handy dandy Butterflies of Southern California guide, we identified it as a Giant Swallowtail, Papilio cresphontes.

Yesterday Cindy came in with a leaf from one of the citrus trees with an incredibly ugly creature on it.  We weren't sure at first whether it was a worm, a slug or a caterpillar, but thanks to the same butterfly guide by Jim Brock, we identified it as the larval stage of the Giant Swallowtail.

Citrus trees are the host plant for this butterfly, and the larva are well camouflaged as citrus twigs or branches as they devour the leaves.

Giant Swallowtail Caterpillar

We carefully placed the caterpillar back on the citrus tree so it can continue to munch its way along toward metamorphosis.

It's amazing that something so ugly can turn into a beautiful butterfly.

Caterpillar on Citrus Leaves

Photograph of Giant Swallowtail copyright Kristin Shipley, used by permission.  All other photographs copyright Kay Teeters.  All rights reserved.