The Black Swallowtail Butterfly
by Robert Bales
Title
The Black Swallowtail Butterfly
Artist
Robert Bales
Medium
Photograph - Photo
Description
Found this while spending a little time at Priest Lake in Idaho.
Black Swallowtails are a fairly common but very pretty butterfly with a wingspan of about a 2.5 to 4 inches wide. They are easy to attract to host plants to lay eggs, and the caterpillars are easy to raise also.
Black Swallowtail butterfly eggs are a very pale, almost white color. They are spherical (ball like) and the female will lay them on both the undersides and tops of the plant leaves. It takes around 3-5 days for the eggs to hatch. Longer if the weather is cooler. When the eggs are close to hatching they will turn to a darker color. The dark color is the actual caterpillar growing inside. The caterpillars chew their way out of the egg. After they hatch they eat what is left of the egg.
Uploaded
August 27th, 2018
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Comments (4)
Kathy M Krause
Awesome beautiful swallowtail Robert! I have not seen a black one for ages! Love it! L/F
Robert Bales replied:
Thanks so much Kathy for the nice comment and I have not seen many!! Thanks for the LF!!