Hummingbird and Butterfly Gardening: I've got a question??, 1 by debnes_dfw_tx

debnes_dfw_tx wrote:
HI Gourd! Welcome to our world.. Looks like you're off to a fine start. You have some great help already.:-)

Your picture looks like you have a Black Swallowtail. From what I can see it is a male. He has probably just come out of hibernation after being tucked inside a chrysalis all winter. With butterflies and moths the first thing on their mind after eclosing is to reproduce. The male you have is patrolling to find a female to mate with. After that the female will want to find the appropriate larval host plant for her babies.

BSTs use a lot of different plants making them one of the easiest butterflies to garden for. These plants include all of the Carrot family, Parsley, Dill, and Fennel.

The two prominent rows of yellow dots along the edge of the wings on your butterfly are what tell me it is a male BST. The female will have only one row and more blue on top of the lower wing.

I was able to retain one BST chrysalis from all the broods I raised last year and it hasn't eclosed yet.

On the other hand my Giant Swallowtails began eclosing yesterday and one emerged from her chrysalis... I released her around 2pm yesterday. This morning a male emerged from another chrysalis and I released him right after his wings were completely filled out and sturdy. Giant Swallowtails use another set of host plants. For that matter each butterfly species has it's own separate host plant(s).

The butterfly bait is great stuff but swallowtails are not usually attracted to it. What you will get is lots of different brushfoot butterflies like Red Admirals Mourning Cloaks and Question Marks... Try it and you will see that the butterflies that go for the brew are not the same as butterflies that use flowers for their food nectars.

Here is a male Black Swallowtail