With the help of the internet, I was able to identify these guys. Lori and I also thought it would be a good idea for Kirby, who is a fan of this children's book, to bring them to his preschool for his show-and-tell:
Kirby brought the little guys safely back home and Lori put them back on the dill plant. They soon afterward made their way over to the adjacent crepe myrtle, attached themselves to the plant's stems and molted into pupae. Fearing their vulnerability to hungry birds or other predators, I decided to bring them inside for protection:
Now we wait for a couple of weeks and see what happens.
I had this caterpillar eat my parsley plants. I looked it up and and it appears to be a monarc butterfly.
ReplyDeleteBlack Swallowtail caterpillars are also known as "Parsleyworms" because they like to eat parsley. You had a Black Swallowtail infestation. Monarch caterpillars are orange and black, rather than yellow and black, and generally stick to milkweed.
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