Papilio rutulus Hand-Pairing

Today we hand-paired our female western tiger swallowtail (Papilio rutulus) with a wild male from Albany Hill (Albany, California).

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Well, today was the day. After waiting for one day after our female western tiger swallowtail (Papilio rutulus) eclosed yesterday, we completed the hand-pairing process this afternoon. We had initially intended to use a male that we had captured from Albany Hill on 7/1, but because it was reasonably sunny we went back into the field to see if we could catch any better males. Not that there was anything wrong with that male, but we thought it couldn't hurt if we could nab a larger one. 

We succeeded in capturing another male which was, indeed, much larger and looked fresher.

​It wasn't quite as large as the female, especially not in terms of the wing area but for some reason its eyes were larger. Perhaps this is an adaptation to help the males in their search for mates. Anyway, after bringing the male home, we promptly hand-paired it with our female, a process that took two or three tries but was a done deal within a few minutes. ​

The two stayed paired for a bit over 50 minutes. This might have been a bit on the longer side, but still seems fairly typical. If the male had previously paired it would have taken much longer, so it is good that it didn't. Over the 50 minutes, we really tried to get in as many shots as possible. . .

After they separated, the female appeared fatter while the male looked shriveled. Also a good sign.

For now, we are still going to try to take it slow and have placed the female in a shoe-box size container. We plan to keep her in the dark for the next two days (it will probably be too cold these days for her to lay eggs anyway) to allow her time to prep her and to mature more of her eggs. 

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Authors
Brian Liang

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