Earlier this summer, we saw a monarch butterfly laying eggs on our milkweed plant, but when the caterpillars were very tiny, they disappeared. We believe a wasp preyed upon them. That was disappointing, but soon after, we found some other interesting caterpillars in our yard. We identified these as black swallowtails. There were seven. We didn’t take any chances with these guys. As soon as we could, we put them into a butterfly cage.
I can’t tell you how exciting this is for us. We love helping caterpillars get to their adult stage safely. 😉 Here are some of the photos I took.
We are also helping some giant swallowtail butterflies. I will post photos of them after they eclose too.
Mama of Letters 
How wonderful to watch and release these beautiful creatures! I found several black swallowtail caterpillars on our parsley this summer. Then I went out of town for several days. Sadly, when I came back they were gone.
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Thank you for your comment! It is wonderful to watch. I’m so sorry you lost your caterpillars. We had the same thing happen to some monarch caterpillars this year. We think a wasp killed them while they were still tiny. So disappointing. This is why we put the black swallowtails in a mesh cage much faster than we would have otherwise.
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