A black swallowtail caterpillar, Papilio polyxenes asterius Stoll!
We found him in the Children's Garden at Bartram's. Check out what he does when threatened (by squeezing gently with two fingers):
He pops out these two orange "horns" which are actually organs that emit a bad odor to birds and other predators (it smelled like sweet apples to me).
Now he lives in this nice little habitat so we can show him to the kids until he emerges from his chrysalis and we set him free. We actually had a monarch caterpillar for a few weeks but I didn't get a chance to document him and his transformation (we released him already).
We found him in the Children's Garden at Bartram's. Check out what he does when threatened (by squeezing gently with two fingers):
He pops out these two orange "horns" which are actually organs that emit a bad odor to birds and other predators (it smelled like sweet apples to me).
Now he lives in this nice little habitat so we can show him to the kids until he emerges from his chrysalis and we set him free. We actually had a monarch caterpillar for a few weeks but I didn't get a chance to document him and his transformation (we released him already).
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