Black swallowtail question

[lib66laur]

I am new at raising (is that even the right word?) black swallowtail butterflies.
I currently have both those caterpillars and monarch cats in separate aquariums. I'm going to blame the fact that I don't recall how long my swallowtails have been in the chrysalis stage on that fact ~ I've been busy!
Here's my question. Yesterday two of my swallowtail chrysalis were twitching ~ practically jumping on the stick. Yay, I thought: butterflies! But no, nothing happened and now my sister suggested they may have been parasitized.
Does anyone have any experience with this situation?

[Mona Miller]

They can wiggle when they are inside of the pupae. They are still alive in there.

But, I've had parasites come out of chrysalis. Separate them from your Monarchs and keep an eye on them. A few days ago, I had a large red and black wasp bore its way out of my Spicebush chrysalis. The wasp is now in a container, not flying free to harm any other butterflies.

[lib66laur]

Thanks. I do have the caterpillars in separate aquariums and am watching constantly at home. Who knew I'd be spending so much time at this? Now if I could just get a caterpillar-cam so I could watch from my desk at work!!

[lib66laur]

Black swallowtails emerged from both of the chrysalises in question. No wasps. One of the butterflies appears to be healthy but I don't think the other one's wings will fully develop. It seems like it expelled some liquid (?) when it emerged, it's body is not as plump as the other and from my understanding, that liquid is needed to inflate the wings. Oh well, I guess you can't save them all. I have one healthy one from a "twitcher" plus another I released yesterday plus another that emerged this a.m. that seems to be doing well!

[Mona Miller]

Expelling liquid is okay. Monarchs do that too. This is waste material left over from the caterpillar stage that the butterfly does not need.