Getting Eggs out of Wild Anise Females

After catching several anise swallowtail (Papilio zelicaon) females, we were able to get them to lay eggs on our fennel (Foeniculum vulgare).

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On 6/19 we captured a very large anise swallowtail (Papilio zelicaon) female ovipositing on our front yard fennel (Foeniculum vulgare). The next day, we caught a very fresh, probably virgin female nectaring at Albany Hill that we later hand-paired with a wild male. The day after that, we caught yet another female by hand, as it was ovipositing on a local fennel. Each of them was placed inside a large screen cage over fennel in order to oviposit as they were captured.

The first female was quite worn and skinny when we caught it and only laid a few eggs before becoming too weak and dying. A dissection revealed only about 30 eggs left, which still seems like a reasonable amount but is actually relatively little.  The second female, being quite fresh, was extremely fat but seemed reluctant, at least at first, to lay many eggs. It was only the third female that seemed to be not brand new nor old that was extremely active and went crazy as soon as it was put onto the fennel. 

Over two days, we collected almost 150 eggs laid by the three collectively. It appears that many of them are fertile, but not all. Females mated in the wild normally have nearly 100% fertility based on collections of wild eggs, so we suspect that the female that was hand-paired may be partially or entirely infertile. Either the hand-pairing was unsuccessful or the male was not ready. Still, combined the the loads of wild eggs we are finding now, we have more than enough eggs. 

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Authors
Brian Liang

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