Wild Caught Female Anise Swallowtail Lays Eggs

The female Anise Swallowtail (Papilio zelicaon) we caught yesterday has laid a hefty amount of eggs.

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When you have caught a female butterfly while it is in the process of laying eggs, you know you've hit the jackpot. While most all females in the wild that are flying around have already mated and are fertile, there is actually no guarantee that they are ready to lay eggs, especially if they aren't old enough. Most females need at least few days for their eggs to mature before their ovipositor literally forces them to lay. Once they have started laying, though, they are willing to keep laying until either they die or run out of eggs (very, very rare).  So if you catch a female that is already laying eggs, the chance that it will start laying readily is extremely high. 

Yesterday we happened to catch a female Anise Swallowtail while it was laying a few eggs on our fennel (Foeniculum vulgare). The plants were actually quite unattractive based on our experience with Anise egg laying preferences; they were mature with flowers, not very healthy, and not exactly isolated. But at this time of year (October) you get what you get! In fact, we were really surprised to find this female at all so late in the season. Fresh eggs in the wild have been scarce for a while now. But, then again, we had a female Anise emerge from a chrysalis formed by a September caterpillar just today!

We put it in a 3 feet by 3 feet mesh screen cage (actually, the same one that we housed our Mediterranean Katydids [Phaneroptera nana] this summer) around some regenerating fennel that it probably didn't see by itself since they are somewhat concealed (things blocking on three sides). It was extremely hot (80 degrees) at the time, the perfect weather for egg laying, and it layed a few before dark. Today happened to be even hotter, and she layed a total of 34 eggs before she became weak with exhaustion. Not too shabby for one butterfly in one day. 

- Brian