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I’ve been watching and photographing a couple of huge Orchard Swallowtail Caterpillars for the past week and they are the biggest caterpillars I have seen. I was keen to keep an eye on them to perhaps be lucky enough to witness the transformation to cocoon and butterfly. If you get upset easily you may not want to read this story.
Orchard Swallowtail Caterpillar in defense mode
- It takes four weeks for the caterpillar to mature, ready to turn into a pupa and these ones in my garden are very developed. They have a “Y” shaped gland behind the head, the osmeterium which you can see in both of the above photographs I took. This pops up when the caterpillar senses danger and it is a bright red colour which I also noticed gives off an odour so I wasn’t game to get too close!
After Christmas, I photographed them again but there was another critter on the branch sitting very close to one of the caterpillars which I didn’t think anything of until I went out again the next day and the caterpillars were gone – they had completely vanished! I searched for a pupa or anything that remotely resembled one but found nothing. I was intrigued then about the other bug and when I found out what it was I was completely horrified!
Here is the evil “bad guy” and he was actually killing the caterpillar! He is an assassin bug, named because of the way they feed on their prey. If you look closely you will see that he is piercing the caterpillar with a sucking mouthpart which is a weapon (proboscis) with which to kill other insects. He is sucking out the body fluids of the caterpillar and feeding on them – you can see why I was horrified and it explains why the caterpillars had vanished. I was upset for the rest of the day after discovering this.
The orchard swallowtail butterfly – what might have been …
Orchard Swallowtail Butterfly
Orchard Swallowtail caterpillar is found in Australia. Most of the butterflies in this family are large in size and with brilliant colours. They are called Swallowtails because some of species have tailed hindwings. However, not all family members have tails, although most Swallowtails found in Brisbane have no tails.
Good Morning i read your blog often and wanted to wish you all the best for the New Year!
Good to hear and I hope 2010 is a great one for you also Nerissa. Thanks for commenting.
The assassin bug is only doing its job to limit population numbers of other kinds of insects. That's how the natural world works. Every organism simply can not survive. No one should be upset as if something "wrong" has occurred. Humans need to accept the way the natural world works. Our hearts may not like it, but our brains need to accept it.
I know Marlene, you are correct in what you say and truly I respect the rules of nature – I was just being selfish from a photography point of view but one of the caterpillars made it to the pupa stage and I am closely observing..
"Marlene A. Condon is a field editor for Birds and Bloom magazine and a regular contributor to Birder's World, Birdwatcher's Digest, The Richmond Times-Dispatch, and The Roanoke Times. She lives near Charlottesville, Virginia, where her backyard is a National Wildlife Federation-certified habitat"