Second Papilio rutulus Female Ecloses

Our second western tiger swallowtail (Papilio rutulus) female has eclosed, this time successfully. Originated as eggs collected on willow (Salix) in Albany, California, Spring 2017.

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The entire day yesterday we were anxious for this second western tiger swallowtail (Papilio rutulus) pupa to eclose, especially after seeing the first one fail. Today at mid-morning, it finally did eclose. Although we didn't see it happening, it must have been just fine because when we found it it had already expanded and dried its wings and was crawling around at the top of the container. Thankfully. No messy meconium on the abdomen this time; it somehow must of timed it just correctly and completely soaked the pupal shell in the red stuff without getting a trace of it on its actual body. The abdomen is also incredibly plump and firm which is, of course, good. 

Even though this came from the smaller of the two pupa, probably by a significant margin (at least 0.2-3 grams based on its prepupal weight), it still looks enormous in terms of wingspan. It's larger than any anise (Papilio zelicaon) we have ever seen or any male rutulus that we have ever captured. Even the humongous 4.5 inch male rutulus that we caught last week can't compare with the overall wing area of this female. This is because there is a noticeable difference in the shape and size of the hindwings in proportion to the rest of the body between the two sexes. Males end up looking very triangular not matter how large they are whereas females, such as this one, look much more boxy and more like eastern tigers (Papilio glaucus). Other obvious differences between the males and females are the amount of blue lining the edges of the wings and the little red pieces at the anal portion of the hindwings that are absent in males. Compared to the basically all black and yellow male that we caught yesterday for hand-pairing, this female is just spectacular with its bright colors and size.  

For today, we continued to feed the wild male and let the female rest. We don't want to rush things too quickly. There probably wouldn't be any benefit in pairing so hastily anyway since the female probably won't start laying immediately even if we did pair them. Tomorrow, if we can we will try to catch more males to see if we can get any larger, plumper ones to do the job but otherwise we will just use the male we have right now for hand-pairing. After that, we will really need to figure out a proper setup and hope that this terrible sub-70's weather improves a little bit in the coming week. . .

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Authors
Brian Liang

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