Months as a caterpillar and days as a butterfly.

And not any caterpillar, as it will become a Citrus Swallowtail Butterfly (Papilio demodocus).

I wondered about its thoughts as it looked at me with one eye.

The lemon tree in our backyard is fairly sheltered from the very strong winds that we battle with here, and last season we only had one caterpillar in the tree. Now there are many more caterpillars in the tree, and I took a few shots of some of them. At first, I will show you how a Swallowtail lays her eggs, and then I will also show you what the Swallowtail's earlier, or young, stage larvae looks like. Then of course, it will also transform into a pupa, but we will have to wait for this lot to go into the pupa stage.

And here he greeted me head on. Does it know that it is only going to live as an adult for 6-14 days?

This is how she lays her eggs, and it's a very fast move.

Sit, lay the egg, and fly.

I took a picture of the egg on the leaf above the young larvae below.

Here was another one, in a different section of the tree.

The butterfly lays her egg in warm conditions, and then 6 days later the larvae emerges. The larvae then goes into a period of approximately 1 month, and the changes to the larvae starts to take place in stages called instars. The caterpillar starts to spin silk, in a chosen spot in the tree and then it covers itself with the silk to become a pupa. The pupa stage takes about 2-3 weeks before the butterfly will emerge.

In the two pictures below, you can see that two caterpillars are taking a rest, as they eat a lot. And when I say a lot, many of the tree leaves disappear.

And then, after the rest, it simply starts to eat again.

Finally, you can see that this one is either testing its silk spin, or it is going to spin itself on that leaf. I will have to keep an eye on that leaf.

I don't think that I can remember where that leaf is, but I shall try my best to find one that has spun itself into a pupa. Nature is so amazing, as every minute detail of a butterfly's transformation was designed by our Creator. They say that the transformation stages are called metamorphoses, and it merely means from birth to death, and the changes in-between.

Last season we were fighting aphids on the lemon tree. Not only the white ones, but the deadly black ones. So, I firstly gave the tree a severe pruning and then treated the tree with Neem. At this stage, it seems to have done the job well as the tree is now lush, but we will have to wait for the blossoms to see if the fruit tastes any better. If not, then we will follow the same treatment this year. The butterflies seem to like it more this season.
Such is life.

I hope you enjoyed the pictures and the story.

Photos by Zac Smith. All-Rights-Reserved.

Camera: Canon PowershotSX70HS Bridge camera.

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