#king swallowtail

[undinoble]

GUYS MY BUTTERFLY CAME OUT OF THE CHRYSALIS AAAAAAAAAAA

OMG OMG OMG im so happy i could cry look at how pretty she is!!!! My Cassandra!!!

[onenicebugperday]

@slimeel submitted: This is a butterfly I found one day with wrinkly wings and tried to give it a space to stretch them. Sadly, it seemed they were hardened by then, and by the next day I found the butterfly dead

(Not asking for an ID, as I strongly suspect it to be a King's swallowtail - Papilio/Heraclides thoas)

Poor dude :( It happens a lot but still sad to see! RIP, friend...

[stardust-gem]

My caterpillars are so hilariously individual, like they'd fit perfectly under the Blossom, Bubbles and Buttercup triplets stereotype. The first was straight to the point, the second was so incredibly social and reactive, and the third has been utterly antisocial, minding her own business and avoiding me like the plague

Today the third and last caterpillar has roamed around and settled on a spot of my plant, unfortunately the process started after 4pm so it's likely I'll miss recording her change, but it was so funny to see her initially refusing to ride the spoon i used to move the other two around so easily

She also isn't very pleased with me i think, she had always kept to herself on the furthest away branch of my rue not sparing me a glance and complaining if i ever disturbed her anyhow

But the funniest: I put the two plants with chrysalis and the one with caterpillar inside because it's so very cold outside, and as a matter of awareness I'm checking to see if the caterpillar is still on her plant and not exploring my room (2:31am). She is in the plant, and most likely she's threading her silk as part of the greater plan™, however when i get closer to check she just stops what she's doing and pretends to be asleep LMAO

Sorry queen I didn't mean to invade your privacy, just making sure you won't crawl on my face in the middle of the night

[sumbug]

!!!! was so excited to go see this butterfly exhibit today (^3^)/～☆

[kris-p-bacon]

We're currently in Costa Rica so get ready for some photo shit posting. Better pics to come after the trip once I upload them from my camera

[onenicebugperday]

A beautiful swallowtail came to my yard the other day 💛

Hello, swallowtail! I love you, swallowtail. Very pretty! Thanks for sharing :)

[undinoble]

My fourth butterfly has sprung to life!!! You all say hi and good journey to Melinoe, she's by far the quickest to grow and shine! I was so happy when her mother delivered the egg to my plant and now I'm equally sad that she's already left to live her life, but i never tire of these little critters

There's even a video of her hatching and some more thoughts and info and photos in my alt acc if anybody's interested

I'm here once again advocating for pet caterpillars because one day you'll be graced by a view like this 🥹

Looking like my profile picture now more than ever 🥰🦋

[stardust-gem]

Today my fourth butterfly Melinoe ecloded from her chrysalis!! This good girl was an only child, and thank the Gods as I'm sure my rue wouldn't have been able to feed more caterpillars (more info and thoughts under the cut)

(Ignore video quality pls, i had to choose stability this one time lmao even tho it's 1080p it looks so cheap)

Due to the weather and some real crazy wind storms that have happened early January, she along with my rue have been living in my room, prettt much her entire caterpillar phase, and i think it was the main reason why she has been the quickest to develop out of all caterpillars i had, taking 29 days from egg hatching to chrysaling, and then less than two weeks to come out as a fully developed King Swallowtail butterfly!

She was so good the entire process, in my previous post i have photos of her pretty much as a newborn, she wandered about all the branches of my rue and never once stepped outside to the furniture around (that's why i say caterpillars are such chill pets!!), she ate and pooped A LOT, and even set her chrysalis on the host plant (which is mad uncommon, none of the others stayed). I guess she really liked the warmth of my room lol

One thing i had the chance to experince again was hearing the characteristic noise of dry leaves being crushed, the sound (at least these) butterflies make while exiting their enclosure, their chrysalis by the end of the process is basically dry skin that's left behind, and i could hear it from my spot of the room while having earphones on!!!! If you listen closely you can also hear it on the video, right when she's stepping out!

I also got to learn new things, like seeing the absurd speed of which she developed from the day before hatching to the hatching day! Like, these photos are less than 12 hours apart from each other!

From seeing the first o thought "hey, she'll hatch sometime this week!", then i went to sleep and woke up to the certainty that today was the day!

And another thing i learned was that butterflies kind of swim (?) On some sort of liquid inside their chrysalis, this is not a fact nor scientifically proven, but during the wait for the hatch i could notice, through the transparent parts of the shell some bubbles that came from the depths and settled on the "horns" of the chrysalis, the highest point, like they were floating on some liquid. Eventually the liquid seemed to disappear and all that was left was air. One hypothesis i can think of is that the butterfly was on its last stages before the hatch, absorbing the remaining liquids of the chrysalis as, actually proven, when they come out there's no liquid

Really wish i had caught that on camera tho

Finally, i think this was my rue's last dance, the plant is what? 4 years old? Its leaves no longer grow strong as they used to, its stem is darkening up on some spots and yellowing on others, some parts no longer grow anything, and it has two little sapplings that are going well. I'm forever grateful to my plant, she's grown along with me all this time, a faithful company that has given life to 4 adorable babies, allowed me to witness the most beautiful cycle of life i didn't know i needed to see upclose. She still lives on its sapplings, and in my memory, and definetely will still be there on my next rue too, because there's no way I'm living without the possibility of raising my butterflies in the future!

To my Melinoe, who's already out there in the wild, and all the other butterflies that came before her, Bela, Daniela and Cassandra, I'll never tire of shouting to the wind how beautiful life can be when you give that little wobbly caterpillar a chance 💖🐛