Update - My Giant Swallowtail EMERGED yesterday! I have one more chrysalis, and one more caterpillar. I'll post those photos, hopefully this weekend. It was BEAUTIFUL!
Really quick, here's a preview until I get to updating the Swallowtail pages:
| Grapefruit |
I have a grapefruit tree. It used to be shaded by
Australian Pine trees. The
hurricanes tore it up some, and dropped Australian Pine branches on it.
We finally got rid of the Australian Pines that were around it.
Now it's sitting there, suffering from the drought, eaten by so many
things I can't count them all, and half dead. I hate to spray the plants in
my yard, but this is one plant I have sprayed before. It REALLY needs it
now... and I was going to do it soon, before the flowers come, but then
this Giant Swallowtail
laid EGGS on it! Um, now what? I want the tree... I want the
eggs...
No, I'm not posting a better photo of that most embarrassing tree. I
plucked some of the eggs off, will raise them inside, and I guess I'll
have to spray the thing. Fortunately I have
Wild Lime and
Hercules' Club trees to feed the Giant Swallowtail caterpillars I brought in. I think I'll
raise them on Wild lime leaves; both are still saplings, but my Wild
Lime is the larger of the two, and I know where there's a nice big one I
can pinch extra leaves from if needed.
The Giant Swallowtail
Butterfly and the
Orange-barred Sulphur Butterfly both emerged on the same day. I put
them on my son's shirt (well you have to play with your butterflies,
right?) The sulphur tried to crawl on top of the swallowtail, and the
swallowtail got annoyed and started climbing up. Up was right onto my
son's face!
