Today we finally harvested the handful of chrysalises from our very late brood of anise swallowtail caterpillars (Papilio zelicaon). Ever since the weather started going downhill at the start of this month, our October brood of anise swallowtails (Papilio zelicaon) have been experiencing some seriously slow growth rate (they are being reared outdoors). Daily temperatures are around 60 degrees Fahrenheit now and it rains often. When we first released the three dozen or so fourth instar caterpillars onto our sweet fennel (Foeniculum vulgare), they were extremely close, probably only a day or two apart in development at the most. After all, they are all siblings that hatched from eggs laid on the same day. But at this point, the faster growing ones in the fifth instar have long pupated while the slower ones have lagged behind dramatically. As of today we still have two very young fifth instar caterpillars outside, a few that are prepupae, and the rest already chrysalises. Because of the late season environment, we noted a few weeks ago about the particularly dark forms of these caterpillars. We even took a few pictures of then fifth instars which had very thick black bands. Well, it turns out that some of the more recent fifth instars such as the two young ones we still have right now are even darker. But what is even more interesting is that some of the chrysalises formed by these late season caterpillars are also extremely dark in color, more so than what we normally saw in the summer. We collected seventeen chrysalises today on our screen cage that were formed by these caterpillars and almost all of them were very dark brown/black forms and not just a tan. Of these seventeen, two were especially black, the blackest anise chrysalises we have ever seen. They are shown below: The pupation site substrate has well documented as being an influential factor on the color of the pupae in certain swallowtails, including machaon-group species (of which zelicaon is a member of), but we have never read anything about what can effect the overall intensity of the color. In our experience, putting a prepupal caterpillar on a dark green substrate versus a lighter green substrate usually both produce green forms but very clearly does not seem to produce any noticeable effect on the shade of the green; the same holds true in the case of a pitch black substrate versus a brown substrate. That leaves us to conclude that what is more likely the case with our chrysalises probably has something to do with seasonal factors like temperature and photoperiod, the same phenomenon we saw which produced the dark form caterpillars that formed these chrysalises. - Brian
Comments
|
Timeline 2012–2017
Albany, California This timeline is a series of daily posts recording our observations on and experiences with various insects in Albany California and surrounding areas, from 2012-2017. Since we did not publish this site until 2016, posts before that were constructed retroactively. Starting in August 2017, we moved to Ithaca, New York; posts from there on can be viewed at Timeline 2017-present: Ithaca, New York. Archives (1,011)
August 2017 (49) July 2017 (121) June 2017 (79) May 2017 (77) April 2017 (91) March 2017 (35) February 2017 (12) January 2017 (10) December 2016 (12) November 2016 (26) October 2016 (49) September 2016 (84) August 2016 (94) July 2016 (99) June 2016 (53) May 2016 (21) April 2016 (4) January 2016 (1) August 2015 (3) July 2015 (3) June 2015 (2) June 2014 (3) May 2014 (1) April 2014 (3) March 2014 (3) December 2013 (2) November 2013 (2) October 2013 (5) September 2013 (11) August 2013 (15) July 2013 (9) June 2013 (5) May 2013 (4) April 2013 (3) March 2013 (2) February 2013 (3) January 2013 (2) December 2012 (2) November 2012 (1) October 2012 (2) September 2012 (2) August 2012 (5) July 2012 (1) June 2012 (1) Authors
![]() ![]() Full Species List (Alphabetical by scientific name) Note: - Not every species we encounter is necessarily presented on this site, rather a selection of those that were of particular interest to us and that we felt were worth documenting. - We can't guarantee that all species have been identified accurately, particularly taxa we are not as familiar with. Lepidoptera Actias luna Adelpha californica Agraulis vanillae Allancastria cerisyi Antheraea mylitta Antheraea polyphemus Anthocharis sara Argema mimosae Attacus atlas Battus philenor hirsuta Bombyx mori Caligo atreus Callosamia promethea Coenonympha tullia california Citheronia regalis Cricula trifenestrata Danaus plexippus Eacles imperialis Erynnis tristis Estigmene acrea Eumorpha achemon Eupackardia calleta Furcula cinereoides Heliconius erato Heliconius hecale Heliconius sapho Heliconius sara Hyalophora cecropia Hyalophora columbia Hyalophora euryalus Hylephila phyleus Hyles lineata Junonia coenia Langia zenzeroides formosana Lophocampa maculata Manduca sexta Morpho peleides Nymphalis antiopa Orgyia vetusta Orthosia hibisci quenquefasciata Pachysphinx modesta Papilio cresphontes Papilio eurymedon Papilio glaucus Papilio machaon oregonius Papilio multicaudata Papilio polyxenes asterius Papilio rumiko Papilio rutulus Papilio zelicaon Phyciodes mylitta Phyciodes pulchella Pieris rapae Plejebus acmon Poanes melane Polites sabuleti Polygonia satyrus Pyrgus communis Rothschildia jacobaeae Samia cynthia advena Samia ricini Smerinthus cerisyi Smerinthus ophthalmica Strymon melinus Trichoplusia ni Uresephita reversalis Vanessa annabella Vanessa atalanta Vanessa cardui Unidentified Lepidoptera Hybrids Papilio glaucus × Papilio rutulus Papilio polyxenes asterius × Papilio zelicaon Orthoptera Melanoplus devastator Phaneroptera nana Pristoceuthophilus pacificus Scudderia mexicana Trimerotropis pallidipennis Phasmatodea Carausius morosus Phyllium giganteum Mantodea Mantis religiosa Phyllocrania paradoxa Hymenoptera Apis mellifera Bombus vosnesenskii Brachymeria ovata Linepithema humile Pediobius sp. Polistes dominula Xylocopa varipuncta Unidentified Diptera Lucilia sericata Unidentified Hemiptera Brochymena sp. Leptoglossus sp. Nezara viridula Odonata Argia vivida Libellula croceipennis Coleoptera Coccinella septempunctata Cycloneda polita Diabrotica undecimpunctata Hippodamia convergens Araneae (Class: Arachnida) Araneus diadematus Phidippus johnsoni |