Just look at this beauty in all her finery!
After watching closely from July 11 as a little caterpillar chewed away on my dill plant to the emergence of this beautiful creature, I was a little sad about having to let her go. She entered the Chrysalis on 17th of June. She emerged from the Chrysalis on June 24th. So, the change happened in 7 days! What a wonderful experience and just one of those tiny little joys having a garden brings.
Above, you see a great picture of her with her Chrysalis.
I was so excited to see her that I took way too many pictures, but I'll share some of them below.
Because I read that a wide curved belly can indicate a female butterfly and that they lay egss very soon, I moved her from the habitat back to the Dill plant. This picture was right before she took off on her first flight. As you can see, she moved from hanging underneath the stem to the top of it. She was not afraid of me at all. Below is a picture showing the underside and her belly.
This one is a full wing closeup!
Below are some pictures of the beginning of our the butterfly journey.
I first found her on June 11th... happily and voraciously chomping her way through my giant dill plant. I was completely stressed out that some bird would swoop down and pick her off the plant. But one day as I watched her, I realized that she had stopped eating as was moving all around the plant. She even fell off the end of a stem once so I put her back and went in search for a habitat and settled her into it. That very night before dark I saw her in the J form they make before forming the chrysalis. When I woke the next morning, there she was, all tucked in to her Chrysalis.
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June 16th, taking the J Form and attaching to the stem!
June 17, the Chrysalis is formed.
June 24th, she emerged as a beautiful Black Swallowtail Butterfly.
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