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Caterpillar: Spicebush Swallowtail Papilio troilus | Sept. 11, 2016 |
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Spicebush swallowtails (Papilio troilus) begin as striking caterpillars.
On the previous Thursday, one of the master gardeners at the Snetsinger Butterfly Garden, in Tom Tudek Memorial Park, showed me why I had never seen a spicebush caterpillar before. The caterpillar secretes a little cocoon mixture to fold the leaf around itself. She parted a curled leaf on a spicebush (the natural home for any spicebush swallowtail caterpillar), and there was an exceedingly young caterpillar. |
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The white stuff you see in the photo is what keeps the leaf closed. As soon as she let go, the leaf folded around the caterpillar.
The next caterpillar is a little older, and you can see its "eyes" beginning to form. |
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| The "mature" spicebush caterpillar has exceedingly attractive eyes. |
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The master gardener told me that a spicebush caterpillar (aside from the youngest) feeds away from its leaf home.
Photo note: The photos were taken with the Pentax K3, with the SMC-A* 200mm macro lens, on 8 Sept. 2016, at the Snetsinger Butterfly Garden, Tom Tudek Memorial Park, in State College, Pennsylvania. |