The Life Cycle of the Swallowtail Butterfly
Published on: December 20, 2009
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Black swallowtail butterflies glide around my garden every summer. Each year I keep a small caterpillar nursery going in the greenhouse, and the children never get tired of watching the changes. Swallowtail caterpillars are sometimes called parsley caterpillars — they love eating the dill. Because I don't use any pesticides, there is always a steady supply of caterpillars and chrysalis cases to observe. The brightly colored caterpillar warns birds that it may be poisonous, which is a clever little defense.
Children are wonderful at finding caterpillars. A good first step is to look up which caterpillars and butterflies are native to your area and what host plants they need. Where I live, Monarch caterpillars eat milkweed and Eastern swallowtail caterpillars eat parsley, dill, and fennel. The eggs are usually about the size of a grain of white rice — small, but easy to spot once a child knows what to look for.
Observation Prompts
- Walk slowly past the parsley, dill, and fennel. Look under the leaves for tiny eggs or small caterpillars with white and black stripes.
- Keep a simple nature journal. Sketch the caterpillar today, then again in three days, and again in a week.
- Count legs. Caterpillars have six true legs in front and several pairs of prolegs; adult butterflies have six legs only.
- When you find a chrysalis, mark the spot gently and check it every morning — emergence often happens just after sunrise.
Materials We Like
- Live butterfly habitat kit — a classroom-ready net enclosure for raising caterpillars through chrysalis to butterfly.
- A Butterfly Is Patient by Dianna Hutts Aston — a beautifully illustrated read-aloud that pairs naturally with a life-cycle study.