High in the black cherry, nearby chokecherry, or lilac, a female Tiger Swallowtail Butterfly, who is bigger than than the male, laid her green round eggs one at a time. She would have flown during the summer months and laid eggs twice. She only lives a month or so and it is her job to make sure there are lots of eggs for more of her kind. Her beautiful wing spread could be between 7.9 to 14.0 cm!
Some Female Tiger Swallowtails are black but some females are yellow like the males. I see the males more often with their four big black stripes down their wings. In my picture of this beautiful female Tiger Swallowtail you can see the the Hindwing (or bottom wing ) has a row of beautiful blue chevrons. (That’s the name of the blue spots.) The yellow female has these blue chevrons too. We can’t see the upper side of the hindwing but it has a big orange "marginal spot” that is usually bigger than the row of pale marginal spots on her wing. On the underside of her forewing of our June butterfly, the marginal spots might come together making it look like continuous band.
In three to five days after the female lays her eggs, caterpillars emerge looking so much like bird droppings that many survive. The first thing the caterpillars do is to eat their own egg casing then turn their energy into eating the leaf on which they were born. They rest on silken mats on the upper surface of leaves that they eat. It would be really fun to find one but they are usually high up in the trees. The older caterpillars turn green and have two dots on them that look like big eyes.
After five moultings (that means they got too big for their britches and had to get a new skin that they fit into) the caterpillar forms a chrysalis or chrysalid which is like a warm coat that protects them while they change from a caterpillar to butterfly.
Our June Swallowtail lived over the winter in its chrysalid but the caterpillars that form their chrysalis or chrysalid this summer, will change into a beautiful Tiger Swallowtail in nine to eleven days. There will be two generations of swallowtails this summer and they will all be welcome in my garden as the flowers in May.
You can just see the orange marginal spot on the back of the wing of this male and you can see the black stripes on its thorax down its abdomen.
In this picture you can see him getting nectar from the flower. That is what the butterflies eat. No more chewing leaves for them!
Now that you know a little about the Tiger Swallowtails I am going to show you something really neat that grows on the ground.
Just for you boys because a lot go girls go “YUCK" (but grandma Miggs tries to teach girls as well as boys that there isn’t a whole lot to feel yuck about in nature really.)
Here the are: DEAD MAN’s FINGERS I found growing under a shrub in my garden this morning.
Love to all
Maggie AKA “Miggs"