Wildlife Wednesdays: Raising a Spicebush Swallowtail Part V

Just a day after turning yellow, our caterpillar formed into her chrysalis. During this phase, the caterpillar liquefies inside the chrysalis, reorganizes and transforms into a butterfly. This is truly a magnificent process that scientists, to this day, do not fully understand.


A little over two weeks after our caterpillar turned into a chrysalis, we noticed the chrysalis had changed into a very dark brown, almost black, color.


Then, a few hours later, as I was standing at the kitchen sink getting some water after a morning of weeding my garden, I happened to notice something huge and black in our butterfly container. Our butterfly had hatched and she was beautiful! We knew she was a girl because of the iridescent blue on her wings; a boy would have been green.


We kept her in our butterfly container until her wings were fully dry and working. Then we released her into the butterfly garden with great hopes that she would find a mate and lay her own eggs to continue this incredible life cycle.

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