Anise swallowtail butterfly on buddleia flower
Click any of the photographs on this page to go to my Smugmug gallery with my photos of the entire life cycle of the anise swallowtail butterfly, starting with the eggs that a butterfly lay on fennel plant in our garden. We bring them inside and feed the caterpillars fennel or yampah (which is the native larval food for this butterfly, very difficult to find these days), keep them through the chrysalis stage until they emerge, and then we release them.
Anise swallowtail egg on fennel
This is an extreme closeup of an egg, which is about the size of a pinhead. If you compare them to the monarch butterfly eggs in my gallery “Life cycle of the monarch butterfly“, you can see that these eggs are smooth, whereas the monarch eggs are striated.
Anise swallowtail caterpillar and chrysalises
This is a photo of a caterpillar (on the left side of the stick) getting ready to turn into a chrysalis. At right are three chrysalises, note the variety of the colors.
Anise swallowtail butterfly emerged from chrysalis
When the butterflies are ready to go, we release them to fly away, hopefully to lay eggs to continue the cycle…
Anise swallowtail butterfly on allium flower