Collecting Swallowtails

A couple of weeks ago, I was really excited to find tiny swallowtail caterpillars on my Rue for the 2nd time this year. The first time was back in April, and a couple days after I first spotted them, they all disappeared. I decided not to let the new caterpillars meet that same fate. I brought them indoors, to the caterpillar playground!

They're doing quite well, getting nice and big!

2 different instars of the black swallowtail caterpillar, chowing down on some rue.

This morning I went outside to gather some more rue for them, since they are going through lots of it.

And I finally got to see something I had never seen before- a black swallowtail egg!

Isn't it gorgeous? This tiny pale green perfect little globe. I've seen pictures of the eggs, so I immediately knew what it was. I was so excited and wondered where Momma was, and if she would be back to lay more eggs soon.

About 30 seconds later, as if to answer my question, there she was! She didn't even seem to mind that I was sitting right there.

A couple of my neighbors know that I'm raising caterpillars and when they wanted to know about finding them, they asked, "Did you just go out looking for caterpillars? Or you just happened to find them?"
"No, I found the eggs."

This always seems to blow people's minds at first- like I have some super human powers for finding butterfly eggs. Which I think is funny, since once you know what to look for- and possibly more importantly, where to look- it's very easy :)

Now I've got about 10 of the eggs and will go out later to see if there are more. I will have to do some research since it is getting late in the year- these caterpillars might want to overwinter as a chrysalis!

Sipping on Lantana