Found 24 black swallow tail cats today

[texas butterfly]

I'm been so busy looking at hummingbirds that I had forgot about my swallowtail corner of my yard.
Found in the pots of my citrus plants a fennel dill weed growing and it has 4 blackswallow tail cats.
My newly purchased a couple of weeks ago, fennel has 20 blackswallow tail cats.

Still have left them outside as they seem to be growing well. Not sure if I have time right now to bring them in, but probably will figure something out. I probably do need to get more fennel plant, since I'm not sure there is enough as one of the plants has 12 cats on it and the plant is just a 4 inch pot of fennel bought at the garden center.

At least for now they should be okay for a couple of days. They still are small and have the horns.

Which is a good reason to have a good caterpillar identification book since the 1st couple instars don't look like a 5th instar cat. The younger ones have spikes and have a white saddleback.

[Mona Miller]

All the swallowtails go through a bird poop stages. They actually look like bird poop. The Giant Swallowtails look like bird poop their whole lives. This is part of their defense.

[texas butterfly]

I'd say when I look at them they still look a little like bird poop.

When I first looked at my swallowtail corner that is exactly what I though I had til I looked closer.

Yeh, what predator wants bird poop?

[Mona Miller]

I've come to the conclusion that butterflies are pretty smart creatures. They have a lot of defenses. Eating nasty tasting plants, looking like something else or somebody else. Making leaf nests. Flying in crazy patterns, yes there is a reason for the way they fly. I've seen skippers zip around and not be caught by hornets. Making jerking movements, falling off plants, smelling yucky. Having spines, crazy patterns on their wings and backs that look like fronts (hairstreaks).

[texas butterfly]

Well the fennel plants aren't that big. 4 inch pot plants.

I counted 15 cats on one small 4 inch pot.

I pulled 8 of the cats and brought them inside to rear. Am feeding them fennel and parsley.

Researched and found that cats will also eat parsley. So, I had already planted parsley in a pot from when I bought the fennel plants a couple of weeks ago. I slide the pots together this morning and by evening a few cats had moved over to parsley.

I also have some rue and several of the cats had moved over the the rue. I'm thinking their eating that too. So, if that is the case, I should have enough food for at least these 24 cats.

Went back to garden center and bought last of fennel plants. 50 cents each and I bought 8.

So at lunch time, slid those next to where the cats were feeding and by the time I had come home they were feeding on some of the new plants.

All the plants were bought from same nursery and they claim to not use pesticides. Their milkweed had cats on it and their passion vines had cats also.

So far, cats are doing good with their new plants. But, I'm afraid momma is still dumping eggs.

Found one egg on the parsly that I had feed the reared cats. So, now I have an egg also that I'm waiting to hatch.

Seems the eggs were deposited on the green fennel. The bronze fennel was skipped.

Except for the one egg on parsley, they seem to prefer the fennel and the fennel type weed that I have growing in my lemon tree pots.

[Mona Miller]

They will also eat Queen Anne's Lace, plus more stuff in the carrot family.