Swallowtail (for real)

When my first swallowtail caterpillar sighting turned out to be a monarch, Samantha at Polliator Plates reminded me to go check my rue.  I've grown rue in my herb garden for six years, because I love the gray fluffy foliage, but I'd not noticed carpillars feasing there.  Sunday I took a closer look, and found one!

This one's definitely a swallowtail

Caterpillar closeup

When I returned with my camera to photograph my findings, I also found another one:


Number two

Whay does this make me so happy?  I have no idea.

In other caterpillar news,  Samantha has raised monarch butterflies from found eggs, and posted their progess here.  Fascinating stuff!

Garden (and Nature) Bloggers Saved a Butterfly

I don't know much about bugs.  Some are beneficial; some are pests.  Some can be bright and colorful; some are downright ugly; others are truly frightening.  I don't want any of them crawling on me.

I'm not very good at identifying bugs.  The one big caterpillar I know by sight is the tomato hornworm, which thankfully I haven't spotted in several years.  I did learn just recently, from a garden blog (I wish I remembered which one!), that it is the larval form of the sphinx moth.  Nifty, but I'm still going to squash the next one I find.

The other day I saw this on an onion stalk:

 A similar size and shape to a hornworm (slightly smaller), but brightly colored and rather pretty.  I might have squashed it anyway, but I remembered some Casa Mariposa posts on eastern swallowtail caterpillars, and thought this might be one.  Of course, if it were a swallowtail, shouldn't it be feasting on my parsley or carrot leaves?  What was it doing on an onion?

I came in and looked up the post I thought I remembered.  Nope, not my caterpillar.  Mine looks like this:

The caterpillar that looked like mine I'd actually seen at The Natural Capital, here.  It is a monarch caterpillar.  Ok, that's good, too.  Now I know why it wasn't on the parsley, but I don't know why it was so far from the milkweed!