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Saturday Morning Garden Blogging Vol. 19.23: Plant it, and they will come! [1]
['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']
Date: 2023-06-10
That’s what I was told when I bought my first butterfly host plant, and it was true!
Raising local butterflies is easy…. And soooo rewarding!!
Many years ago, I heard about the Monarch butterflies winging their way towards extinction, and decided that I wanted to help.
So I hiked my butt up to a far-away native plant vendor to buy two common milkweed plants….
Two common milkweeds…
I asked the salesperson how to attract Monarch butterflies to my new milkweed, and they told me,
“Plant it, and they will come!”
Common milkweed (Monarch butterfly caterpillar host plant) sprouting in the spring
On the way home, I found two 3rd-instar Monarch caterpillars on those plants I bought, and I was glad. That showed me the vendor didn’t use pesticides on their plants, which would have killed those precious caterpillars…
I planted that milkweed, and that’s how I started my garden to raise Monarch butterflies.
Instars, btw, are caterpillar ages/life stages. Monarch caterpillars have 5 instars - first instar is a newly-born caterpillar. After each molt (when it sheds its skin), a cat is in it’s next instar. 5th instar cats are the cats that form a chrysalis.
Monarch caterpillar instar comparison — found on “www.internationalbutterflybreeders.org/...”
Since then I have branched out to raising Eastern Black Swallowtails, and have recently planted bushes and trees to feed hummingbird clearwing moth caterpillars, hummingbird moth caterpillars and Zebra Swallowtails.
This diary will mostly be about Monarchs, with a bit of Black Swallowtails thrown in.
Each different kind of butterfly or moth has its own host plant(s) that its caterpillars eat the leaves of.
For Monarchs, it’s milkweed… they eat nothing but milkweed. That’s why when farmers mow the milkweed around their crop fields down, it hurts the Monarchs. Less places to reproduce!
(BTW, contrary to the name, milkweeds are NOT weeds, they’re native wildflowers!!)
Common milkweed. These flowers are light pink, and smell like candy when walking thru the garden.
Tropical milkweed. Narrower leaves with beautiful, bright colored flowers.
For Black Swallowtails, host plants are any plant in the carrot (Apiaceae) family, including parsley, dill, fennel, rue, Queen Anne’s lace and golden alexander.
Fennel
Rue. See the Swallowtail caterpillar in the middle of it all?
The moral of this story is, if you’re a gardener, and you’re growing the correct host plants, you can raise butterflies without much effort.
For those of you who might think raising butterflies is too hard, I’ve had some really bad physical issues happening the last few years…. one of the only hobbies that doesn’t cause me much pain is raising butterflies. If I can do it, anybody can!!
One thought that helps me is, caterpillars are SLOOOOOOOW!!! LOL!!
Sloooow little Monarch caterpillar
When raising butterflies, it’s best to find their eggs outside in your garden, and confirm it’s a butterfly egg with a jeweler’s loupe (eggs are VERY tiny-the size of the head of a metal sewing pin!!)
Then you cut off the part of the plant the egg is on, bring it inside and stick it in either a floral water tube or vase with water in it (depending on the size of the plant piece).
Unknown photographer and source — photo of Monarch egg on common milkweed flower buds
I usually keep my egged leaves in floral tubes held in scientists test tube racks, for ease of refilling the tubes with water. The trick is to keep the plant parts alive long enough for the egg(s) to hatch, and let the newborn hatchlings start to eat the leaf.
Test tube rack holding Monarch eggs on common milkweed leaves
Then you wait a 4 days to a week for the egg to hatch (for Monarchs and Swallowtails). A Monarch egg’s tip turns black when it’s about to hatch (the black is the caterpillar’s head!). A Swallowtail’s egg gets what looks like a brown belt around the circumference, then turns black before it hatches.
The warmer it is in your caterpillar room, the quicker the egg(s) will hatch.
Monarch caterpillar egg ready to hatch — the black is the caterpillar’s face cap!
Once, to get a video of a caterpillar hatching, I took a microscope camera to work with my laptop, and caught the hatching on video as it happened. That was a fun workday! Thank God it all happened before my boss got there (and before I was on the clock)!!
My photo setup at work — finally recording a caterpillar hatching out of its egg!
On the following video, the little white dot near the right side is the egg. The black element coming out of the egg at first is the caterpillar’s head.
Sorry for the blurriness… not a very good microscope!
Newborn caterpillars are very small… Newborn Monarch cats measure from 0.079 to 0.236 inches long. Tiny and very, very fragile!!
The first thing a newborn caterpillar does, is turn around and eat its eggshell. That will give it energy to start feeding on the plant its egg was laid on.
Newborn baby Monarch butterfly caterpillar on common milkweed. Almost microscopic!!
Once the eggs hatch, I move the tubes to a paper-towel-covered block of wood with tube holes drilled in it. That way, if a small caterpillar falls off its plant, it will be easy to find... usually on top of the paper towel.
The blocks are covered by a very fine netting, to prevent any flying bugs that get into the house from eating the butterfly eggs or baby caterpillars.
Butterfly egg/newborn nursery
When the caterpillars get larger, I have to cut larger pieces of its host plant (because bigger cats eat more), and usually stick those in narrow-top vases covered with a rubber glove finger. The glove finger prevents the caterpillars from falling into the vase and drowning.
Glove finger on top, with slit cut to place milkweed into vase water
As the caterpillars continue to molt and grow, all you really need to worry about is getting them fresh food, refilling the tube/vase water (changing water, if needed), and cleaning frass (poop) out of the cage bottom.
Monarch caterpillars have hard face caps (like a mask to protect them) — and when they molt, that cap falls off. They’re very vulnerable when they molt, until that new face cap hardens!
Molting means the caterpillar sheds its skin to enter the next instar (stage) of its life.
Newly-molted Monarch. His old face cap fell off and his head is very light-colored, soft and vulnerable.
But after they molt, caterpillars turn into eating machines! That’s their one job, and they do it well!
Two 5th instar cats vying for the tastiest milkweed leaf
Caterpillars are eating machines!!
First instar Eastern Black Swallowtail caterpillar. This l’il boo will change drastically as s/he ages!
Two 5th instar Swallowtail caterpillars outside on fennel. Unfortunately, they never became butterflies.
For both Monarchs and Swallowtails, the 5th instar caterpillars will roam around their cages when they’re ready to pupate (make a chrysalis). Most of my Monarchs pupate on the cage roof, and the Swallowtails usually pupate on diagonal dowel rods.
I use Ikea mesh laundry hampers with lids as my grown-up caterpillar cages… the fine mesh allows fresh air to circulate, helps avoid bacterial infections, allows taller plants to be placed inside for larger caterpillars, while also protecting the cats from any bugs that may have gotten into the house.
Searching for the perfect spot
Once they find “their spot,” each type of caterpillar will do its thing to transform into a chrysalis. Different kinds of caterpillars have different processes.
Monarch cats spin a silk button on the underside of something (when home-raised, it’s usually the underside of the cage lid or a milkweed leaf). They then hang by their butt in a “J” formation, and eventually form a chrysalis.
Swallowtail cats usually find a diagonal branch (I use small dowel rods for cleanliness), crawl up & attach their butt to it, spin a silken thread around their midriff to keep them in place, and form their chrysalis.
Hanging in J formation. The arrow shows where his yellow stripes are turning chrysalis-colored green
You can tell by his limp, wilted antennae that he’s almost ready to form his chrysalis
J’s underneath the milkweed leaves ❤️❤️
Whole lotta J-ing going on!
Black Swallowtail butterfly chrysalis on dowel rod — notice the silken thread holding it in place
Once the chrysalis is formed (this is where the magic starts!!!), depending on the surrounding temperature, it will take 10 to 15 days to transform into a butterfly.
Monarch chrysalis on right will hatch within a day…. when you see wings thru chrysalis, it will be soon!!
The butterfly will hatch (eclose is the official term) from the chrysalis, hang there for a few hours pumping fluid into its wings to expand/straighten them, dry its wings, and then they’re ready to be set free outside to do the butterfly boogie-woogie!
Drying its wings
Film clip of one of our Monarchs eclosing (hatching). Film has been sped up. Notice how full-looking butterfly’s bottom end is… its bottom is filled with fluid that it will pump into it’s wings to straighten them out. Yea, the process looks a bit kinky, but that’s nature for ya! 😉
Different butterfly species have their own characteristics…. for example, Monarch butterflies are usually very mellow when releasing them (which allows for getting plenty of pictures!)…. Swallowtails, on the other hand, are usually raring to go when releasing, and it’s very hard to get good pix!
Seeing if one of the Monarchs is ready to fly!
So, how do you tell who’s a male and who’s a female? That’s the question I get asked the most!
For Monarchs, males have one dot on each of their bottom wings, and their wing veins are thin.
One dot on each of the Monarch’s bottom wings — it’s a boy!
Female Monarchs have no dots, and the wing veins are thicker.
It’s a girl — no bottom wing dots, and much thicker wing veins
Female swallowtails have much more, bigger blue dots on their bottom wings than the males do:
Female Black Swallowtail — look at all the big blue dots!
Male Swallowtail — very few, little blue dots
Obviously, there can be some parasite or bacterial infection problems when raising butterflies…. Many times, these issues are more prevalent in the southern states due to year-round warmer weather not killing parasites, etc. off in the cold weather.
But wherever you are, if you do decide to try and raise butterflies, you’ll have great luck if you keep everything as clean as possible.
And even if you plant host plants outside to let the caterpillars raise themselves out there, at least you’re helping these winged beauties survive and thrive!!
Plant it, and they will come!!!
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