Over the weekend, we found the tiniest caterpillars feasting on the lime leaves.
These lovelies are the caterpillars of the common lime butterfly. They were about 7mm when I first found them on the undersides of the young leaves of the lime plant. A dead giveaway are chomped leaves and little poo pellets.
Papilio Demoleus is one of the more common swallowtail butterflies. The caterpillars display distinctive tinges of brown and light yellow stripes on their bodies. These are colour tones that are very much like the adult butterfly.
Butterflies are essential in the ecological system of the edible garden. They help pollinate the flowers. However, the caterpillars if left to their own devices, are quite damaging to young plants.
The common lime caterpillar are picky eaters and chomp through young leaves. They leave the plant looking patchy and sad. Some plants cannot support the prolific growth of these big eaters.
I was inspired by fellow gardeners to keep the cuties in glass jars. We are doing our part to sustain the ecological system, in a controlled environment. They grow and develop so quickly it's instant gratification for the kids to track their progress.
I keep the caterpillars in glass jars, covered with breatheable insect repellant mesh. Ironical, but it works to keep them in.
All it takes is to clean out the droppings every morning. I add the caterpillar poo to the soil of the lime plant, as a way of giving back. The uneaten leaves are replaced with sprigs of the choicest young leaves. This way, the larvae are fed and the lime plant is safe (for now)!
By the 2nd day, one of the larva grew substantially. #01 was slightly longer than 1cm while #02 remained stagnant. In fact #02 hardly moved from its position and did not respond. I thought it was gone, but left it in the jar just in case.
On the 3rd day, #01 has doubled in size overnight.
#02 is revived and has resumed its growth! Thank goodness we gave it time to get used to the new environment!
Will update the progress!
Update 19 Aug 2015:
It has been almost a week since we last updated. In caterpillar world, alot of changes can happen in a week.
#01 doubles in size everyday.
The larva has the cutest wide apart eyes.
In the morning, #02 (on the left) is a late stage 4th instar caterpillar.
When we returned that night, #02 (on the left), has freshly moulted into a 5th instar caterpillar.
On the 6th day, I found out more about the caterpillar and decided to include some sticks into the glass bottles for the caterpillar to cling on to for pupation eventually.
The kiddos love to help track the growth of the caterpillars.
4 days after the 5th instar, the caterpillar comes to rest at the side of the bottle. It stayed dormant before purging. It then spins a silk pad and a silk girdle to become an immobile pre-pupatory larva.
Pupation happens on #01 the very next day. The pupa suspends itself with a silk girdle. #01 pupa is in green form.
From the side view, the pupa is angled and we can see a dorsal thoracic hump.
This pupa stage should last for about 9 days. We are holding our breath as we observe the coloration development on the pupal case.
How exciting that #02 undergoes pupation the very next night. And it's a pupa in brown form!
The underside of the brown form is so vividly beautiful.
Twiddling our thumbs as we wait for our 2 happy pupae to eclose.
After so much anticipation the most incredible part of the process happened! 7 days after pupation, #01 emerged!!! Nothing can prepare us for the beauty.
And it's a boy! He was way bigger than I imagined, more than 5cm wide!
Posted a video of us releasing the little beauty here: https://www.facebook.com/weimein/videos/10155997312520646/
Note: We found out a lot about the Common Lime Butterfly from this blog. http://butterflycircle.blogspot.sg/2011/11/life-history-of-lime-butterfly-v20.html
Update 10 Sep 2015:
We managed to capture videos of the larva molting into pupa here:
As well as the pupa eclosing into butterfly:
These videos are 4x speed.
Update 1 Mar 2016:
After our experience with the first butterflies way back in August 2015, we have been periodically releasing the common lime butterfly back into the eco system. The highest record we had was 11 butterflies consecutively over a few days.
If there are only 2-3 caterpillars, I leave them on the citrus plants. This is because, after they nibble at the leaves, new shoots will form and flowers will grow on these shoots. So I do not need to prune to plants. I will however, place them in glass bottles once they moult into 5th instar (turn green). This is because they are more seceptible to predators at stage. I suspect they are not too delicious when they are brown and spiky, but the birds love them when they turn green and juicy. Their mortality rate is high at this stage.
However, if there are more than a handful, I will transfer some into glass bottles. This is because my lime plants are small. If the colony gets too big, they can still wipe out too much leaves.
After a short hiatus, we are seeing another surge of the common lime butterfly this week.
We noticed that the common lime butterfly usually eclose at dawn (6-7am). That was how we managed to capture the eclosing on video.
By the time we leave home around 8-9am, it's wings would have dried enough to release. They usually flutter away quickly when we release them in the daytime.
This little beauty was released last Thursday night. We only discovered her when we returned after dark. She flew out and quickly landed on our magnolia to rest for the night. Looks like these butterflies rest at night.
This little beauty is a girl. Gender can be easily identified from the 2 red spots at their hindwings. Females have a big black spot capped with a narrow blue lunule (blue irridicent strip). While males have a small black gap below the blue lunule.
Update 17 Mar 2016:
We have a record batch of 9 butterflies that eclosed on the same day! Counted 8 but realised we had 9. Such joy!
Kiddos has a field day. Here is a video of us counting and releasing the beauties:
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